Philly jury awards $3.5 million to family of dementia patient allegedly raped in Pottstown Hospital
Rita Quigley, 79, was hospitalized in Tower Health's Pottstown Hospital after a fall in 2020. Her family says she was raped during that stay.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $3.5 million to the family of a 79-year-old woman with dementia who was allegedly raped at a Tower Health hospital.
Rita Quigley’s family filed a lawsuit in 2021 over an alleged sexual assault that they contend took place in Pottstown Hospital during the time COVID-19 visitation restrictions were in effect.
Quigley was a Berks County resident with advanced dementia. In October 2020, she was hospitalized at Pottstown Hospital following a fall, according to the complaint. After a four-day stay at the hospital, Quigley got a “clean bill of health” and was transferred to a rehab facility by TowerDIRECT, Tower’s ambulance service.
Rehab facility staff noticed significant bruising and injuries on and around Quigley’s genitals, and transferred her to Phoenixville Hospital, also part of Tower, for a rape kit examination. The findings at the Phoenixville emergency department were consistent with sexual assault, the complaint said.
Montgomery County law enforcement opened an investigation but never identified a perpetrator.
Before the incident, Quigley was “cheery and bubbly,” the complaint said. But after the alleged assault, she stopped eating and “basically shut down.” In January 2021, she died.
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Quigley’s family filed a lawsuit in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia against Tower Health, Pottstown Hospital, and TowerDIRECT in July 2021. The complaint says that because of visitation restrictions related to COVID-19, Quigley was especially vulnerable, and it alleges that “an employee of Pottstown Hospital violently and viciously raped Rita.”
“Rita presented as, sadly, the perfect victim, someone whose illness prevented her from ever being able to report a criminal act committed against her,” the complaint said.
Tower Health declined to comment.
The defendants argued that there is no evidence that a sexual assault took place. Quigley’s children visited her daily and no one reported concerns, TowerDIRECT said in a court filing. And nurses documented a “maroon/purple” bruise below the patient’s waist, which was consistent for someone who had a history of falls.
After a nearly monthlong trial, a jury found Feb. 24 that Quigley was “intentionally harmed while under the care” of Pottstown Hospital and TowerDIRECT, and that the hospital and ambulance service were negligent. The jurors awarded Quigley’s family $3.5 million. Pottstown Hospital is on the hook for 80% of the verdict and TowerDIRECT for 20%.
Nathan Schadler, an attorney at Conway Schadler who represented the Quigley family and who was a prosecutor for a decade, said the photos of the injuries were difficult to look at, even for him. But in addition to the evidence of the assault presented to the jury, Quigley’s son also testified about the impact the assault had on the family.
“He said to the jury at one point that … he will always feel that he failed his mother,” Schadler said. “It’s the moment Rita became a human being and that family became human beings for that courtroom.”
Pottstown and TowerDIRECT filed posttrial relief motions, the first step in the appeal process, asking that a judge find the verdict excessive and order a new trial.