A Buffalo jury has awarded $11.1 million, including $3.5 million in punitive damages, to a disabled resident of an intermediate care facility where the plaintiff claims he endured years of neglect and abuse. After deliberating only two hours, the panel on Dec. 18 gave the plaintiff nearly everything he requested, and then added punitive damages.
Behbringer v. United Cerebral Palsy of Niagara County, 2009-6559, involves a 59-year-old blind, developmentally disabled resident of a group home in Niagara County. At a three-week trial before Supreme Court Justice Deborah Chimes, the plaintiff’s attorneys, Terrence Connors and Joseph Morath Jr. of Connors & Vilardo in Buffalo, produced evidence that Robert Behbringer suffered a seizure because staff failed to give him a dose of medication, sustained another seizure when an aide dropped him, fell on the floor when he was unattended and unrestrained in a wheelchair, and was left sitting in his own urine or feces.
