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Alejandro Hernández
Alcoi
Jueves, 23 de enero 2025, 12:15
El Juzgado de Primera Instancia e Instrucción 3 de Alcoi has dismissed the lawsuit filed over the deaths of 15 elderly residents and injuries to three others at the DomusVi care home during the pandemic, where their families sought over 2.2 million euros in compensation, ruling out negligent conduct by the company managing the facility.
The presiding judge made this decision in a 257-page ruling, notified to the parties on Thursday, after thoroughly examining documentary evidence and testimonies from numerous witnesses and experts who participated in the trial, held between September 30 and October 10 of last year.
The judge concluded that there was no evidence that the defendant company, Quavitae Servicios Asistenciales SAU, engaged in negligent conduct regarding the virus's entry into the care home, its spread, or the care provided to residents.
He noted that a care home is not a hospital and that the medical negligence attributed to the company by the plaintiffs "is not comparable to those sought to be imputed in cases of exclusive malpractice by healthcare professionals," as the care home professionals were "constrained by a lack of resources not attributable to them."
"The pandemic situation we experienced from March 2020 in Spain does not fall within any margin of normality," the judge reasoned, and "exceeded the limits of any social health activity, no matter how well-equipped."
In fact, the emergence of the Sars-Cov-2 virus caused a "total shortage of available healthcare and social healthcare professionals in the labor market," similar to the lack of materials, "an issue that affected internationally" and therefore cannot be attributed to the defendant company, he specified.
The judge explained that a "fair trial" of this litigation requires starting "not from what is known now about the virus, almost five years after the pandemic's origin, but from what was known then, at the end of February (2020), when even the scientific community had not yet determined that transmission occurred through microdroplets and not larger droplets, as initially believed."
In fact, "if our Executive Power could not foresee or prevent the pandemic, it is not necessary to demand it from a private legal entity, which at least managed to anticipate certain actions to regional recommendations and guidelines," he stated.
Regarding the possible lack of professionals to care for residents, the ruling details that from March 2020, the DomusVi care home "more than adequately met staffing ratios" and hired "numerous workers, as far as possible, to address the new needs caused by the virus."
"The co-defendant is also not responsible for the absences caused by the infection of its workers during the pandemic period, nor for being unable to replace these absences with new employees," the judge noted.
The ruling thoroughly analyzes the testimonies of multiple witnesses who participated in the trial, focusing more on the former head of the Home Hospitalization Unit (UHD) of the Virgen de los Lirios Hospital in Alcoi.
From these testimonies, the judge noted "an evident contradiction in different points" that prevents determining when, as the witness stated, "there were sick residents throughout the care home." Similarly, many aspects of his testimony, such as finding two deceased during a visit, could not be corroborated by other evidence.
The ruling dismisses the possibility that the entry of COVID-19 into the care home could have been prevented, "even if more medical supplies had been obtained," due to the number of workers, residents, and visiting relatives, as even the plaintiffs' experts acknowledged.
The same occurred with the virus's spread, which was "very difficult, almost impossible, to devise a strategy to prevent," given the disease's incubation period, during which symptoms do not appear, or the existence of asymptomatic infected individuals.
In any case, DomusVi in Alcoi attempted on March 8 and 9, 2020, "to restrict family visits as much as possible" and implemented room changes as an "isolation or sectorization measure," the judge argued.
Furthermore, the health authorities' rules and recommendations, adopted by the Generalitat on the 10th of that month, required isolating a resident only when symptoms of infection appeared, and in the Alcoi care home, those symptoms "did not occur until March 14," after two positive cases were confirmed at the city's hospital.
Therefore, the judge found no neglect of residents due to staff shortages at the center nor any breach by the company of the prevailing protocols.
"No warnings, alerts, or recommendations were ignored," he emphasized, especially when at that time "the message from public institutions was one of calm, as evidenced by the celebration of festive, social, and cultural events that took place immediately before the state of alarm was declared."
The judge also ruled out negligent conduct in not transferring infected residents to hospitals, as the reference hospital, Virgen de los Lirios in Alcoi, "was at its limit at the time of the outbreak in the care home" and informed the care home that it was not in a position to attend to them.
On the other hand, forensic reports provided by the defendant company advised against such transfers due to the hospital's collapse and the residents' pre-existing conditions and advanced age, stating that they could receive "better, or at least more humane, care" at the residential center.
The judicial resolution also reviews the clinical history of each deceased individual and concludes that there is no evidence that DomusVi was "negligent in providing healthcare, social healthcare, and rehabilitation services" to these 15 deceased individuals or violated the so-called lex artis rules regarding the three residents who were injured.
The judge also found that the requirements set by the Supreme Court's jurisprudence to establish a "causal relationship between potential negligent conduct in providing healthcare, social healthcare, and rehabilitation services" by the company and the damages for which contractual liability is claimed were not met in this case.
Furthermore, the ruling absolves the care home's insurer, Mapfre, which had been sued by both Quavitae and the main plaintiffs, after declaring the validity of a policy clause that limited its coverage until December 31, 2020, as the first claim directed at the company occurred outside that period, specifically on March 10, 2021.
Regarding legal costs, although the judge harbors "no doubts regarding the substance at the time of resolution," the main plaintiffs are not ordered to pay the costs incurred by Quavitae because "there may have been" such doubts "at the time of filing the lawsuit."
The ruling is not final and can be appealed to the Provincial Court of Alicante within 20 days.
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