Attachment 6 EDNY Hodge v Cuomo 21-cv-01421 Complaint

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Case 1:21-cv-01421-NGG Case MDL No. 3011 Document 1 25-6 Filed 03/17/21 Filed 06/24/21 Page 16 Page of 154 16 of PageID 154 #: 272 short of panic and chaos caused by the Owner Operator Defendants and the State Officer Defendants. 8. This is institutionalized wrongful treatment of the Class Plaintiff by selfish pursuit of personal interests of the Owner Operator Defendants, Party-in-Interest Defendants, aided and abetted by State Officer Defendants, named herein, diverting, converting and embezzling benefits funds of the Class Plaintiff, despite the consequences to the Class and the patients in facilities run by the Owner Operator Defendants. 9. Behind the sickness and death nightmare resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic infections, is illicit cooperation between the State Governor’s Office, the Government Agencies answering to the Governor’s Office, Owner Operators of nursing home businesses, Parties-in-Interest involved in prohibited transactions under the ERISA, all in concert in a conspiracy to deny the benefits to which the employees, members Class Plaintiff, are rightfully entitled. Lack of preparation, lack of skills, lack of practice and lack of benefit compensation to the Class members, is the reason why employees, vulnerable patients that the care for, and the public, were excessively exposed to infection. 10. This is institutionalized wrongful treatment of the Class Plaintiff by selfish pursuit of personal interests of the Owner Operator Defendants, Party-in-Interest Defendants, aided and abetted by State Officer Defendants, named herein, diverting, converting and embezzling benefits funds of the Class Plaintiff, despite the consequences to the Class and the patients in facilities run by the Owner Operator Defendants. They may have gotten away with it but for a highly contagious virus ripping the cover off their scheme. 11. It is not credible for the Owner Operator Defendants and State Officer Defendants to be surprised by the current pandemic. After the Ebola crisis in 2014, dire concerns over deadly communicable disease threats to New York prompted staff drills that revealed gaps in the then deficient pandemic preparedness, foreshadowed the panic when the COVID-19 infection spread. In 2014 mock patients portrayed by actors at dozens of emergency rooms across New York City arrived reporting symptoms that should have triggered immediate infection-control measures, such as masking and isolating the patient, but it did not. Stress tests show that about 40% failed at least one drill and it took nearly an hour for some patients to be masked and isolated. There was training and drilling needed. 12. Instead of training, drilling and educating so that proper responses become second nature, the funding of Plan assets to provide benefits, including training and continuing education, were diverted by the persons named here as Owner Operator Defendants, Party-in-Interest Defendants, aided and abetted by State Officer Defendants. 13. You will learn that Plan asset benefit funds to cover benefits including training, education, and apprenticeship, were diverted from benefiting the employee Class Plaintiff, diverted 16
Case 1:21-cv-01421-NGG Case MDL No. 3011 Document 1 25-6 Filed 03/17/21 Filed 06/24/21 Page 17 Page of 154 17 of PageID 154 #: 273 instead to prohibited transactions under ERISA, used not for benefits to participants and beneficiaries, nor to cover Plan expenses, but instead to buy real estate, make personal private investments, and generally abscond with the Plan assets. By the wrongful acts of the Owner Operator Defendants in concert with Party-in-Interest Defendants, aided and abetted by State Officer Defendants, failure to train using benefit funds expensed and reported to the State, was the direct and proximate cause of the employee Class members being unprepared for naturally occurring and reoccurring infectious diseases. 14. Selfish diversion and conversion of Plan assets is the cause leading to unpreparedness and is directly responsible for the panic that occurred in March 2020 when the Covid 19 virus rapidly spread. Workers did not have emergency processes that should have been drilled and drilled and drilled and practiced and practiced and practiced, to address such expected communicable disease natural disasters. ERISA benefits under the Plan were and are intended to develop skills which include containing spread and providing treatment of infected persons, but the Plan assets were lost to embezzlement. 15. This complaint shows a pattern of conduct with the complicity of Government Agencies and their State Officers in consort with the Owner Operator Defendants and Party-in- Interest Defendants, that warrants judicial intervention to temper the heavy hand that has led to the unpreparedness of private for-profit businesses that the Government Agencies regulate. You will see the misuse of the authority vested in our Government Agencies, misuse under color of law for the benefit of cohorts who have politically and financially endorsed and supported certain State Officers in authority. 16. Then on March 25, 2020, an order issued by the State's Department of Health (“DOH”) under the emergency authority given by the State Legislature to the Governor, mandating that nursing homes shall not deny readmission or admission to people "solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19." To make matters worse, tests to determine if the readmission persons were still contagious were not allowed by the Order . So fair a day was March 25, 2020 turned foul. 17. When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, it was as though all front-line workers lacked common sense, but in fact what they lacked was organized training and continuing education to make their responses in the face of natural spread of diseases to be second nature learned from drills and practice in preparation for expected communicable diseases that naturally occur and reoccur throughout time. Drilling should have occurred during intervals of no infection when there is time to learn skills that become second nature when infectious assault happens. That did not occur, you will learn here why. 18. The complacency, bureaucracy and actual conspiracy under color of law by the State Officers was an underlying cause of the current disaster, the spread of a communicable disease caused by unpreparedness by failing to regulate the employers (referred to here 17
Page 1 and 2: Case 1:21-cv-01421-NGG Case MDL No.
Page 15: Case 1:21-cv-01421-NGG Case MDL No.
Page 67 and 68:
Case 1:21-cv-01421-NGG Case MDL No.
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
show all

Attachment 6 EDNY Hodge v Cuomo 21-cv-01421 Complaint

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?