Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > News Items

SLS Residential Defendants Sanctioned After Threatening Form

<< < (2/2)

Anonymous:
Uh oh! I think SLS is getting shut down with a 90 day notice. WooHoo@! :rasta:

psy:

--- Quote from: "Guest" ---Uh oh! I think SLS is getting shut down with a 90 day notice. WooHoo@! :rasta:
--- End quote ---
Great news!  Source?

Anonymous:
Awesome. :rasta:

Ursus:
The article in the OP has also been archived on an attorney website:

SLS Residential Defendants Sanctioned After Threatening Former Patients
Oct 8, 2008 | Parker Waichman Alonso LLP

© 2002-2011 YourLawyer.com®.[/list]

Ursus:
And here's an earlier article that never made it to a post here, published 'bout two weeks prior to the above article in the OP:

-------------- • -------------- • --------------

The Journal News
SLS fined $35G for misleading ex-patients on lawsuit

Sep. 25, 2008
Written by Timothy O'Connor

A federal judge yesterday fined a Putnam County for-profit mental-health company $35,000 for attempting to scare patients away from a federal class-action lawsuit that accuses the company of mistreating them at its two facilities.

U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson issued a 16-page order that found the company, Supervised Lifestyles Inc., known as SLS, had engaged in "abusive, deliberate, and improper conduct" during the lawsuit's opt-out phase, where former patients decide whether they want to participate in the lawsuit. SLS operates two facilities that treat young adults with psychiatric problems.

The state Office of Mental Health announced this month it intends to revoke SLS's three licenses to run the two Southeast facilities, saying the company had wrongly restrained patients and denied them contact with family members. SLS has said it will fight the revocation.

The findings by the OMH are similar to the allegations raised in the lawsuit filed by two former patients in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

Robinson wrote that SLS had contacted patients and communicated "false and misleading information to the putative plaintiff class members and their parents and families in a concerted effort to scare them into opting out of this lawsuit."

Former patients said that SLS therapists had called them and told them their medical records would be made public by participating in the lawsuit.

Michael Sussman, the lawyer representing the former patients, said Robinson had stepped in to protect the integrity of the legal system.

"SLS class members and I are gratified by this decision and by the clarity the judge has brought to a situation which SLS intentionally tried to muddle," he said. "This example of judicial resolve restores faith for many who have found the legal system unresponsive to their human needs."

But a lawyer representing SLS said the company was considering an appeal of Robinson's order.

"At the hearing before Judge Robinson, SLS representatives stated that their actions in contacting patient family members were motivated solely by concerns relating to the health, welfare and privacy of SLS patients," lawyer Paul Callan said.

Robinson ordered that for the duration of the opt-out period, SLS or its agents no longer can contact former patients about the lawsuit without his permission.

He also voided all previous opt-outs and ordered new notices of the lawsuit be sent to potential class members who opted out "to affirm that decision once the false and misleading information provided by SLS and its employees has been corrected."

Reach Timothy O'Connor at http://www.LoHud.com.[/size]

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page