The owners of two nursing homes in Kansas City, MO, have filed a lawsuit against the city’s water and sewer utility, which is threatening to shut off services to more than 250 innocent residents, saying the move risks patient safety and is unnecessary at any rate.
The lawsuit requests an injunction that would remove a $178,000 lien placed against the facilities in March over delinquent bills stemming from 2021 and 2022. At that time, Blue River and Rock Hill Nursing Center were managed through leases with previous operators, Blue River MO Consulting LLC and Kansas City South MO Consulting LLC.
The new owners, who took over by the end of 2022, “had no choice but to pay KC Water” approximately $130,000 to clear the balance, The Kansas City Star reported. But then danger reared its head again.
“KC Water aggressively threatened to shut off water and sewage services to (the facilities) within twenty-four (24) hours because of (the balance) — directly endangering the lives of the nursing homes’ 260 ill and elderly residents,” the lawsuit states.
The payment was part of a settlement reached with KC Water and would be returned to the new owners in September 2023, the investors’ lawyer, Mayer Klein, wrote in a case filing. But once the utility returned the money, it issued a new bill for approximately $122,000, which Klein called “illogical” and in defiance of the settlement.
Klein did not return a request for comment from McKnight’s Long-Term Care News on Tuesday. Contact information for Blue River MO Consulting LLC and Kansas City South MO Consulting LLC was not available.
While bankruptcy sales often allow new buyers to obtain properties without having to settle previous liens or judgments, an outright purchase may not offer such protections.
Klein said the new owners have been trying to resolve issues with KC Water for 18 months and said in lawsuit filings that the utility has not explained irregularities in bills that don’t reflect a $213,000 payment the facilities had already made. The lawsuit also said that KC Water has issued “multiple 24-hour shutoff notices to the Blue River facility.”
The lawsuit, which described KC Water as having “gone nuclear,” was filed July 29 in the US District Court for Kansas.
