ARA-Piketon Dialysis was also named as a defendant in the suit.
Sheila Marie Workman died on Sept. 23, 2013, and Tina Blankenship, her sister, was appointed as administratrix on Oct. 11, 2013.
Workman was a patient receiving dialysis at Piketon Regional Dialysis Center in Piketon, Ohio, and was found unresponsive in her treatment chair on Sept. 24, 2013. There was a large amount of blood found under her treatment chair.
Resuscitative efforts on the part of the staff and local EMS were unsuccessful and Workman was declared dead, according to the settlement document. Her cause of death was acute exsanguinations as a consequence of chronic kidney failure on dialysis.
Blankenship claims American Rental Associates and Piketon failed to comply with administrative regulations of the State of Ohio governing dialysis centers and that those failures caused and/or contributed to Workman’s death.
The matter was vigorously litigated and set for medication in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 22, where Blankenship agreed to a confidential settlement.
At the time of Workman’s death, she was survived by three sisters: Blankenship, Sue White and Margaret Dempsey. Workman had no children, brothers, adopted children or stepchildren, mother or father alive at the time of her death and no one was financially dependent on her.
Blankenship claims the three sisters agreed to a distribution of the settlement after payment of attorneys fees and expenses with Blankenship receiving 35 percent and White and Dempsey each receiving 32.5 percent.
Blankenship is seeking for the court to approve the compromise and settlement with the defendants. She is also asking the court to authorize the distribution of costs advanced to date by Hartley & O’Brien from the settlement proceeds; to authorize recovery by Hartley & O’Brien of the 40 percent fee per the contingency fee contract; authorize $7,500 to be held in a trust pending determination and resolution of potential Medicare and/or Medicaid lien(s) and unrecovered litigation costs and expenses; and to seal the transcript of the proceedings.
Blankenship was represented by Mark R. Staun and David B. Lunsford of Hartley & O’Brien.
Logan Circuit Court case number: 16-C-303
