Psychiatric Solutions Inc. has been hit with a lawsuit that accuses the company of negligence in its oversight of employees at a residential psychiatric facility in Florida.
Abuse including beatings by employees at the Manatee Palms Youth Services in Bradenton caused plaintiff Nicholas E. Rossi to suffer severe emotional distress and bodily harm, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Manatee County Circuit Court. Rossi was a resident at the facility from September 2004 to May 2005.
Psychiatric Solutions of Franklin, which operates psychiatric hospitals, inherited the facility when it purchased Ramsey Youth Services of Coral Gables, Fla., in 2003.
Manatee Palms failed to run proper background checks on several employees with criminal histories that battered Rossi, who at the time was a minor, the suit claims. It also kept them on staff and failed to stop and report the abuse and batteries, it claims. Brent Turner, a spokesman with Psychiatric Solutions, declined to comment.
The suit comes after the Los Angeles Times published a report in November from independent, nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica describing dozens of instances of abuse and neglect at company facilities from coast to coast.
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