SEQUIM — A medical malpractice lawsuit seeking an unspecified amount was filed Wednesday in Clallam County Superior Court against a man and woman who ran an in-home adult care home in Sequim.
John K. Packer, 33, and Carol S. Hardwick, 58, are awaiting trial on criminal charges related to alleged verbal and physical abuse at the now-shuttered Garden Grove Adult Family Center facility.
The branch of the state Department of Social and Health Services that licenses adult care facilities shut down Garden Grove in late 2002 after it found residents were in “imminent danger.”
The Sequim Police Department conducted its own criminal investigation.
Packer and Hardwick were arrested in February and pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree manslaughter, two counts of second-degree criminal mistreatment and one count of first-degree criminal mistreatment.
The charges involve five residents in their 80s who lived at Garden Grove between 2001 and 2002.
Hardwick and Packer owned and operated the facility out of their Pine Court residence since 1999.
Sequim police reports allege two people died at the facility without receiving proper medical care and three others suffered suspicious bruises.
Hardwick and Packer are scheduled to go to trial in November.
Daughter files lawsuit
The lawsuit was filed by Sequim resident Janis Kendall, the daughter of the late Ida E. Jones, who was a resident at the facility from June 2002 until her death in August of that year.
It alleges that Jones died as a result of “negligent, abusive and outrageous conduct” by Hardwick, Packer and Garden Grove’s staff and employees.
