Joe Louis' Sister Froze to Death at Nursing Home, Suit Says

Boxing legend Joe Louis' sister froze to death because a suburban Detroit nursing home negligently allowed her to wander outside at night, her son alleges in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Vunies B. High, who suffered from Alzheimer's, was found dead Feb. 18 outside the Heatherwood assisted-living facility, according to the lawsuit.

High's son Sidney says the facility's corporate owner is liable for his mother's death because the home's staff failed to adequately monitor her or ensure that she did not leave the premises unsupervised.

He also says his mother should not have been accepted as a resident because her mental status "may have precluded her from living there safely without a higher degree of supervision."

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, names facility operator Capital Senior Living Properties 2 - Heatherwood Inc. as the defendant.

The facility is part of the Dallas-based Capital Senior Living Corp. chain, which operates 64 senior living communities in 23 states, according to the complaint.

Even though Heatherwood is designated as an independent-living center, High says it agreed to provide his mother with a level of care commensurate to that of an assisted-living facility.

According to the complaint, the facility's executive director expressed concern about High's ability to maintain personal hygiene and offered to provide her with assistance in that area.

Facility officials also promised to provide 24-hour staffing, an emergency call system and a "personal care program" that would provide safety checks, help with dressing and undressing, transportation around the building, and reminding residents to take medication and showers, the complaint says.

Because these services are consistent with the services that assisted-living facilities provide, the staff owed a reasonable duty of care to ensure that residents did not wander from the facility, the suit says.

Heatherwood owed a duty to monitor the front door and emergency exits to ensure that vulnerable residents could not leave the building unattended or unsupervised, the complaint says.

The facility had no alarm system to alert staff when an emergency exit was opened during nighttime hours, it adds.

Vunies High left the facility unnoticed at some point during the night of Feb. 17, according to the complaint. She was found frozen to death with her face stuck to the ice on the ground at 10:30 a.m. the next day, it says.

Sidney High is seeking compensation for his mother's pain and suffering and damages for her family.

At press time Capital Senior Living had not responded to the complaint.

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High is represented by Jules B. Olsman and Donna M. MacKenzie of Olsman Mueller P.C. in Berkley, Mich., and Richard H. Bernstein, Michael L. Battersby and Michael J. Blau of the Law Offices of Samuel Bernstein in Farmington Hills, Mich.