Oakmont Senior Living to Settle Wildfire-Related Lawsuit

Oakmont Senior Living has agreed to settle a lawsuit related to a major wildfire that destroyed one of the provider’s California communities last fall.

The Tubbs Fire swept across the northern California town of Santa Rosa in Oct. 2017, affecting four Oakmont communities and burning one—the 72-bed Oakmont of Villa Capri—to the ground. After that catastrophe, 17 Villa Capri residents and family members filed a lawsuit alleging that Oakmont had mishandled the evacuation.

Pre-trial motions in the case were scheduled to begin last Friday, but that trial now has now been called off as the two sides have settled for an undisclosed sum, according to The Press Democrat, a newspaper covering Santa Rosa and the surrounding region.

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The judge in the case ordered the two parties to deliver a draft settlement agreement by Sept. 11, The Press Democrat reported.

Oakmont did not respond to a request for comment from Senior Housing News on Monday.

Based near Santa Rosa in Windsor, California, Oakmont has planned and developed more than 50 communities on the West Coast, and it operates two-dozen properties in California and one in Nevada. The provider recently launched a website featuring the company’s explanations of how the Santa Rosa communities were evacuated during the Tubbs Fire.

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In late July, Oakmont evacuated its community in Redding, California, as another major fire blazed through that city. That evacuation took place in the early morning hours of July 27, at a time when the community was outside the mandatory evacuation area, Oakmont Management Group Chief Marketing Officer Crystal Robinson told Senior Housing News in a July 31 email.

Oakmont of Redding residents returned to that building on August 8 and August 9, according to the community’s website.

Written by Tim Mullaney

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