Inclusion Daily Express -- State, Company To Pay $1.5 Million To Scalding Victim

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State, Company To Pay $1.5 Million To Scalding Victim
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 30, 2008

ANDERSON, INDIANA--A jury has ordered the operators of an assisted living center and the state of Indiana to pay $1.5 million to compensate a man who suffered first- and second-degree burns when he was put in a bathtub of scalding hot water in 2000.

The Associated Press reported that the Madison Superior Court jury deliberated about two hours Monday night before ruling in favor of 42-year-old Audrey McGhee. The jury then ordered the for-profit Residential CRF Inc. to pay McGhee $1.125 million in damages, and the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration to pay $375,000 in damages.

McGhee reportedly has intellectual disabilities and cerebral palsy, and is blind and deaf. The damages are to go into a fund to cover the cost of McGhee's care for the remainder of his life, estimated at another 30 years.

Charles R. Clark, the attorney that represented McGhee's estate, argued that McGhee could not have independently filled the tub with hot water and gotten in on his own, as the defendants had claimed.

"Poor old Audrey sat there and got himself scalded, better yet, boiled," Clark said. "There's no evidence of him doing anything with that water, none."

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