Jury hears closing arguments

By early afternoon, the jury was still hearing lawyers’ final arguments in the Oconee County civil trial involving a Seneca nursing home and one of its former residents. Expectations remain that this is the day or night for a verdict to decide the three-week old trial. As one of the lawyers conceded in front of the jury, it has been a trial in which some witnesses—those who once worked at Seneca Health and Rehabilitation and those who still work there—gave “diametrically opposite testimony” about the care given the late Dorothy Reynolds of Walhalla and about the conditions present at the nursing home during Reynolds’ stay there in 2010. Kenneth Connor, representing Reynolds’ son, Russell, accused Seneca Health and Rehabilitation and two other associated entities of putting “profit over people” at a time when Mrs. Reynolds developed body sores and malnourishment. According to Connor, management failed to properly staff the facility with enough nurses and aides to properly care for Reynolds and other residents. But Lori Proctor, attorney for the defense, said the nurses, the aides and other staff members are dedicated to caring for the elderly and work in a difficult profession, and she referred to nurse summaries that described the care and attention Reynolds received. Proctor asked the jury to keep in the mind that the medical malpractice lawsuit is a case about Dorothy Reynolds, an 87-year old woman cancer patient who developed dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. She said it’s not a case about other things.