Robin Flores

A young man’s suspicious death a year ago, expected to be ruled a homicide next week, could turn into a civil court battle for the well-known nursing facility that was caring for him at the time.

In a lawsuit filed Friday against the Health Care Center at Standifer Place, Robert A. Young’s sister Rana Reynolds alleges that not only did an unnamed employee kill her brother, but other employees didn’t even tell family members he was dead for more than a month when they would call to check up on him.

After Mr. Young’s Nov. 12, 2007, death, “Standifer Place told each person, on each call, that (Mr. Young) was OK, and to come see him,” the lawsuit states.

Mr. Young died as a result of “blunt force trauma to the head,” and Medical Examiner Dr. Frank King is expected to rule the death a homicide when he issues his autopsy report next week, according to a Hamilton County Medical Examiner’s office spokesman.

Attorney Robin Flores said it all points to a tragic situation in which those charged with caring for the poor, 33-year-old cerebral palsy sufferer just wished the circumstances of his death “would all go away.”

Adult Protective Services, the state agency with legal guardianship of Mr. Young, also did not respond to Erlanger hospital’s repeated attempts to find his family, Mr. Flores said. Instead, the agency simply made arrangements for Mr. Young, who died at Erlanger about a week after being sent there from Standifer Place with a fractured skull, to be buried in a pauper’s grave at Ruth Cofer Cemetery, Mr. Flores said.

“Our position is that Standifer Place was in collusion to cover this up,” Ms. Flores said. “It was like, ‘Just bury the guy. He’s a ward of the state, so who cares?’”

Ms. Reynolds, of Graysville, Tenn., is seeking damages in the amount of $35 million to compensate for Mr. Young’s “wrongful death” as the result of his care at Standifer Place, the pain and suffering she and others claim he endured and the mental anguish of those left behind.

Standifer Place Administrator John Strawn denied that the facility or any of its employees contributed to Mr. Young’s death.

“There is no evidence of any wrongdoing,” Mr. Strawn said, adding that Mr. Young died at Erlanger, not at Standifer Place.

Mr. Flores said he is preparing to file a complaint against Adult Protective Services as well. The agency is not named in the lawsuit against Standifer Place and did not return calls Friday seeking comment.

Chattanooga Police Sgt. Bill Phillips said Friday the homicide investigation is “very active,” but declined to comment on whether an employee at Standifer Place will eventually be charged in Mr. Young’s death.

But Mr. Strawn said Friday that the individual who is the target of the investigation worked at the facility and now is suspended.

The civil lawsuit comes on the heels of a criminal investigation that began in May when a judge ordered Mr. Young’s body to be exhumed, Sgt. Phillips said.

Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox first filed the petition for exhumation on the belief that Mr. Young’s death occurred under “suspicious circumstances and/or in a possibly unnatural manner.”

In an affidavit, Dr. King said his office did not perform an autopsy at the time of Mr. Young’s death because of the belief that he had fallen and fractured his skull as the result of a seizure.

Yet on further examination of medical records — and at the constant persistence of family members, Mr. Flores said — Dr. King recommended the body be exhumed because he could not find in the medical records any documentation of seizure or other incident that would have led to Mr. Young’s skull fracture.