Essex County Nursing Home Hit With COVID Lawsuits: Report

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — A nursing home in Essex County is facing multiple lawsuits from family members of residents who died from coronavirus complications at the onset of the pandemic, a report says.

Evelyn Wells, Anthony S. Martino Jr., and Andrea Maria Rendrefy died of COVID-19 or complications from the virus in April 2020, which they contracted while living in Canterbury at Cedar Grove, NJ.com reported.

The complaint for Martino alleges that the facility didn’t take proper safety precautions at the time, including giving masks only to registered nurses and not to other staff members who interacted with residents. The families of Martino and Wells have filed class-action suits, seeking to represent more than 50 people who were infected due to alleged failures at Canterbury, and who were “without next-of-kin, survivors and/or heirs,” NJ.com reported.

Canterbury at Cedar Grove, which is located at 398 Pompton Avenue, has an overall rating of two out of five stars from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). That includes a one-star rating for health inspections (the most recent of which was done on June 10, 2021). It also includes a four-star rating for staffing, and a five-star rating for quality measures.

An infection control inspection performed on Jan. 20 found no health deficiencies.

As of March 20, the facility’s COVID-19 vaccine rates were:

• Resident vaccination – 96.6%
• Resident boosters – 70.2%
• Staff vaccination – 100%
• Staff boosters – 47.3%

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