A Joliet, IL, nursing home that closed in March still owes 117 employees more than $420,000 in unpaid wages, the state attorney general alleged in a lawsuit — and the total continues to accrue.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed the suit Aug. 2 against Salem Village Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, alleging that the owners underpaid the employees approximately $350,839. The additional $70,000 is unpaid wages that continue to accrue since the filing date, the lawsuit stated. The amount will continue to grow at $17,496 per month “without limitation until judgment is entered,” per the filing.
According to local news reports, all residents had moved out of the facility by mid-February after the census had dropped from a maximum capacity of 272 down to 132 – the lowest in the 40 years Salem Village had been in operation.
“We can’t get any answers,” former Admissions Director Lori Tibble told Shaw Local news in March. “All our corporation is telling us is, ‘We’re working on it.’”
According to the Illinois Department of Health, 49 nursing homes closed between 2019 and 2022. So far this year, two facilities in Joliet have closed, Salem Village and Our Lady of Angels. Peoria-based Petersen Health Care entered foreclosure proceedings in early 2024, affecting 17 nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
With increasing financial pressures, unpaid wages have become a significant issue throughout the long-term care industry this year.
The Massachusetts attorney general ordered three long-term care facilities owned by Bluepoint Healthcare into receivership last month after the provider failed to pay employees for weeks.
And in July, a Pennsylvania judge levied a $35.8 million judgment against 15 nursing homes, faulting the owner on-site managers, and a shared management firm “routinely” failed to properly compensate nearly 6,000 workers over six years. Workers at several of those facilities were unlikely to ever be paid, given an ongoing bankruptcy sale that could let the owners off the hook.
The Illinois attorney general’s lawsuit lists Makhlouf Suissa, David Aryeh and Shoshana Aryeh as the facility’s owners and defendants. Eric Rothner, listed as a manager, is also a defendant in the lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court of the 12th Judicial District in Will County, IL.
McKnight’s Long Term Care News‘ attempts to track down the owners for comment were unsuccessful.
