Individuals sue Canyon Sudar Partners, others for deaths

HUNTINGTON -- Two individuals are suing Canyon Sudar Partners for family members' deaths in separate cases.

SVCare Holdings, LLC; Sava Senior Care, LLC; SSC Equity Holdings, LLC; SMV Management Company, LLC; SMV Huntington, LLC; Seventeenth Street Associates, LLC; Annica Stansberry; John Does 1 through 10; and Unidentified Entities 1 through 10 (as to Huntington Health and Rehabilitation) were also named as defendants in the suits.

On May 15, Donald Rein Brooks was admitted to Huntington Health & Rehabilitation, where he remained until July 10, and Bonnie Smith was a resident from 2008 until Sept. 5, according to two complaints filed Nov. 7 in Cabell Circuit Court.

Tracey Handley claims during her father's residency at the nursing home, Brooks sustained physical and emotional trauma, including pneumonia, sepsis, falls, bleeding and aspiration.

Harold Hanshaw claims the defendants caused Smith physical and emotional trauma, including sexual abuse and contracting genital herpes.

The defendants caused Brooks and Smith to lose their personal dignity and extreme and unnecessary pain; degradation; anguish; other unnecessary hospitalizations; disfigurement; emotional trauma; and ultimately death, according to the suits.

Handley and Hanshaw are seeking for the court to order and declare that no valid agreement to arbitrate exists in the matters. They are being represented by James B. McHugh, Michael J. Fuller Jr., Amy Quezon and D. Bryant Chaffin.

The cases have been assigned to Circuit Judge David M. Pancake.

Cabell Circuit Court case number: 11-C-837, 11-C-840