Allstate Suit Says Brain-Injured Washed Cars as Therapy

By David Armstrong - 2012-08-28T14:14:58Z

Allstate Corp. (ALL), the second-largest U.S. auto insurer, is seeking fraud damages in a lawsuit alleging that a Florida brain-injury facility warehoused patients who were beaten and abused by staff.

The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Tampa, seeks $7.6 million that the insurer says it paid the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation to treat its claimants, as well as triple damages under federal racketeering laws and other costs.

Allstate alleges patients from Michigan, which mandates unlimited lifetime medical benefits for automobile injury coverage, were recruited to the Florida facility through an aggressive marketing campaign that promised an array of services that were never provided.

Some patients washed the cars of the centers employees, an activity that was considered vocational training, according to the lawsuit.

Wayne J. Miller, an attorney representing the facility, known as FINR, said in an e-mail that he was confident that this matter will ultimately be resolved in FINRs favor.

The lawsuit, which also named FINR owner Joseph Brennick as a defendant, follows a Bloomberg News report last month on dozens of cases of alleged abuse at the facility. Patients families or state agencies have accused FINR of abuse or care lapses in at least five residents deaths since 1998, two of them in the last two years. Three former employees face criminal charges of abusing FINR patients -- one of whom was allegedly hit repeatedly for two hours in a TV room last September.

Last week, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration said FINR was treating people without brain injuries -- in breach of its license -- and ordered the company to move dozens of patients to other facilities.

Allstate said it began investigating the treatment of its insured patients at FINR in 2011. Its review included interviewing patients, hiring experts to study medical records and ordering exams with a neuropsychologist. The lawsuit covers the cases of a dozen patients -- identified only by initials in the legal filing -- whose care was paid for by the Northbrook, Illinois-based insurance company.

In some cases, patients were kept too long at the facility or shouldnt have been there in the first place, the lawsuit alleges.

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Allstate Suit Says Brain-Injured Washed Cars as Therapy