Elizabeth Massey filed a lawsuit against Clinton Place after her daughter allegedly suffered health conditions there.
Tayjon Bumphus
CLINTON, Ky. — A mother filed a lawsuit against a nursing home in Clinton, Kentucky, after she claims her daughter suffered poor conditions there, resulting in maggots in one of her wounds.
Elizabeth Massey filed the complaint in 2024 against Clinton Place after her daughter, Leslie Massey, allegedly endured multiple health issues. The complaint lists Clinton Place, five other LLCs, and three individuals, including Trella Wilson, the nursing home’s administrator.
The suit lists four counts: negligence, medical negligence, corporate negligence and violations of long-term care resident’s rights, which the lawsuit claims led to Leslie’s deteriorating health.
Leslie was admitted to Clinton Place in December 2020 after Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. Elizabeth said she had taken care of her adult daughter her entire life, and it was difficult to continue to take care of Leslie after her husband died and her diagnosis.
“I just couldn’t take care of her by myself anymore,” Elizabeth said. “I had to do something, and I trusted these people with my daughter.”
Leslie was diagnosed with Prader-Willi syndrome — a rare genetic condition that can cause developmental delays and hyperphagia, an intense drive to eat — at a young age. Brian Jasper, Elizabeth’s attorney of record, said Clinton Place staff were not properly educated and trained on PWS.
“[Leslie] had a condition where she couldn’t stop [eating], and the care plan in this case failed her because they were not protecting her from those compulsive disorders,” Jasper said.
He said that led to Leslie gaining a “substantial amount of weight,” affecting her mobility and eventually becoming bed bound. Jasper said it also increased her risk for pressure ulcers.
“It’s very difficult for the people that work there to take care of her because she required a lot of physicality to turn [and] reposition her, but it’s the responsibility of the facility,” Jasper said. “If they can’t meet her needs, they have to make accommodations or find her somewhere that can meet her needs.”
Jasper went on to say the facility failed to meet Leslie’s other needs: providing basic hygiene and proper nutrition. He said evidence shows that Leslie refused a bath and staff honored her right to refuse; however, Jasper said, “We feel like the facility many times let Leslie make decisions for herself that should not have been made.”
“Leslie did not have the ability to process and understand that refusing this care was bad for her, and they did it anyway,” Jasper said. “They would just let her refuse, and they would just mark it down when they should have taken steps to go around that to make sure she got the care that she needed.”
The lawsuit, along with Jasper and Massey, said the lack of care for her basic hygiene, nutrition and health led to Leslie suffering “accelerated deterioration of her health and physical condition beyond that caused by the normal aging process,” including developing a Stage III pressure injury, sepsis and facility-acquired maggots in wounds.
“When maggots form in a wound organically, or just in a room of poor hygiene and poor pest control, that is a clear sign of neglect,” Jasper said.
Elizabeth claims Leslie had maggots in her body three times while she was living at Clinton Place.
“I was shocked. I was shocked that that was allowed to happen,” Elizabeth said. “Nothing you can say will change what y’all have done to my daughter. Nothing. I mean, it was disgusting.”
Not only does the lawsuit claim the poor nursing conditions impacted Leslie’s health, but it also says Clinton Place was not adequately staffed to take care of Leslie.
“We feel like that was a clear sign that they were not providing enough qualified staff for her assessments and to get the preventative care that she needed because she was clearly at high risk for everything that happened,” Jasper said. “She needed a lot of care, and they were just not staffing in a way that would meet those needs. And because of that, these problems happened.”
Jasper explains why this case is being tried as a civil suit instead of a criminal case.
“This didn’t come up as a criminal case because typically a criminal case would be a situation — and I’ve had these cases before — where, for example, a CNA will get frustrated with a resident, they’ll haul off and slap them. That’s physical abuse. That’s assault. Those people get charged criminally. This was, again, more of a neglect issue, where they kept missing the care that she needed,” Jasper said.
WPSD reached out to Clinton Place for comment on the lawsuit. Trella Wilson, the administrator at Clinton Place, said in a statement, “We dispute the allegations, but can’t comment on pending litigation.”
“I don’t know how they can say that they weren’t responsible. She was in their care, and this happened,” Elizabeth said.
The case had a motion hearing on Thursday, Oct. 15. Jasper said the case was supposed to go to trial, but was pushed back to a tentative date in 2028.
In the suit, Elizabeth requests the following relief: judgment against the defendants in an amount that will fairly compensate Elizabeth for damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, costs and attorney’s fees, trial by jury and all further relief.
Although Leslie has passed, Elizabeth said she is going to continue fighting for her daughter.
“I just want them to do their job so other families won’t be going through what I’m going through. No one deserves to be treated like that, and they just need to be diligent with their care,” Elizabeth said.