A Brookdale Sarasota Midtown lawsuit filed in 2025 reveals the hypocrisy of its assisted living residency agreement and corporate practices. Brookdale Sarasota Midtown is a for-profit 120-bed assisted living facility located at 2186 Bahia Vista Street, Sarasota, Florida 34239. The lawsuit also raises a fundamental question: What are assisted living facilities? Are they healthcare facilities operated for the purpose of caring for and protecting our seniors? Or, are they merely apartment blocks with elevated rents?
The Brookdale Sarasota Midtown lawsuit was filed in 2025 by its corporate operator for the “eviction” of an elderly resident. A summons and complaint were served on the resident at Brookdale Sarasota Midtown by a Florida process server. The summons gave this elderly assisted living facility resident only five days to respond. When the five days had passed, Brookdale’s lawyers moved for a default judgment. A final judgment was obtained and entered against her only thirty days after she had received the summons, effectively evicting and displacing this elderly lady from the premises. We do not know what the cognitive status of this lady was at the time. Did she suffer from dementia? We do know, however, that when she entered the facility and a residency agreement was signed, she was not the person who executed the contract. Rather, a person designated as her “Legal Representative” signed the residency agreement under the power conferred by a Healthcare Power of Attorney. This begs the question: Why did Brookdale fail to have a process server serve the summons and complaint on the legal representative who actually signed the agreement on behalf of the elderly resident?
Here is where the hypocrisy arises. Whenever a resident seeks to move into a Brookdale assisted living facility, they are asked to review and sign what constitutes a thick packet of documents, often exceeding as in this case, fifty pages of material. Buried within those documents is something called an “Agreement to Arbitrate.” An arbitration agreement, when validly signed, constitutes a waiver of one’s constitutional right to file a lawsuit in a court of law and have the case decided by a jury if and when a legal dispute arises. In the residency agreement, Brookdale even touts what they contend are the benefits of arbitration:
If this elderly lady had suffered from neglect and abuse or died as a result of Brookdale’s negligence, you can rest assured that the corporation would have fallen back on its arbitration agreement and sought to dismiss a lawsuit brought by her legal representative. In fact, this is exactly what Brookdale did back in 2012 when the family of a deceased 93 year old resident sued the assisted living facility for damages, alleging that the facility allowed her to elope from the building, only to be discovered in the parking lot “bleeding from her face and head.” She suffered “broken bones in her nose, multiple lacerations, and death.” Fortunately, in this case, the family was successfully able to fight the arbitration clause in court and have it declared invalid and void, allowing the lawsuit to survive and proceed in the Circuit Court until the time it was finally resolved.
But therein lies the hypocrisy. While Brookdale touts the puported benefits of arbitration to resolve legal disputes and seeks to persuade incoming residents to forever waive their constitutional right to turn to the court system when a dispute arises, when this large corporation needs to take legal action, it rushes into court and ignores the clause in its own contract that promises all kinds of wonderful benefits to consumers through arbitration. Brookdale praises the benefits of arbitration to consumers but completely side-steps arbitration when it needs to take action. Why is that if arbitration is truly so wonderful for everyone involved?
Through the use of arbitration and the selection of arbitrators to decide cases that they have a history of paying and working with, corporations seek to eliminate lawsuits and accountability and avoid local citizens that make up juries that are much more likely to hold them responsible for harmful acts. Arbitration is expensive, usually takes longer and is normally unfair to consumers. Therefore, it goes without saying that most attorneys who represent victims of abuse and neglect counsel their clients to refuse to sign residency agreements that contain arbitrations clauses. The best practice is to cross them out and write the word “refused” beside them where they appear in the contract. Since arbitration is supposed to be voluntary, residents and their representatives have every right to reject arbitration. But this rejection must usually occur at the time the residency agreement is signed.
Brookdale Sarasota Midtown Complaint Substantiated in 2025; Florida Officials Find Violations
A complaint investigation and contemporaneous occurence of a scheduled relicensure inspection at Brookdale Sarasota Midtown brought Florida officials with the Agency for Health Care Administration into the ALF to conduct an unannounced investigation during 2025. In this instance, investigators substantiated the complaint without issuing a citation; however, they did identify other violations during the inspection for which deficiencies were issued.
One violation centered on the failure of Brookdale Sarasota Midtown to comply with the legal requirement related to the assistance with the self-administration of medications. Florida officials concluded that “[b]ased on observation, interview, and record review the facility failed to ensure staff who assist residents with self-administration of medications do so in accordance with proper procedure for 6 (Residents #12, #13, #14, #15, #16. #17) of 6 medication observations. The facility failed to follow physician’s orders when providing assistance with self-administration of medication according to orders” for one of the six residents reviewed. The report further details the specifics of those violations. Additionally, the assisted living facility was cited with a violation for failing to accurately document in a resident’s Medication Observation Record. The complete history of complaints, inspection results and deficiencies cited may be reviewed for Brookdale Sarasota Midtown on the Agency’s website located here: https://tinyurl.com/2w69vwww
Do you have concerns about a resident’s care or treatment in an ALF? Free Consultation: (941) 485-7600
Do you have questions or concerns about the care or treatment of a resident of a Florida assisted living facility? You may call me for a free, confidential consultation at (941) 485-7600. James Keim, Sarasota Assisted Living Neglect Lawyer.
By holding long-term care corporations accountable for the harm they cause to our seniors, we can help to improve the quality of care for all Floridians.
As a Sarasota elder abuse lawyer with nearly thirty years of experience, I can answer your questions and help families obtain justice and accountability for the harm caused to their loved ones.
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Facility image courtesy of Google Maps.