Court ruling stops Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation from 'emergency evacuation' of residents

A Nassau judge Friday granted a temporary restraining order the New York Attorney General's Office sought that will block Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation from beginning an "emergency evacuation" of its 318 residents — many elderly and disabled — days before Christmas and Hanukkah.

State Supreme Court Justice Lisa Cairo's ruling after two days of arguments in her Mineola courtroom prevents the Woodbury nursing home from discharging or transferring its residents until both sides return to court on Jan. 6.

The order also requires Cold Spring Hills, Long Island's second largest nursing home, to continue meeting its weekly payroll obligations until at least Jan. 6.

The nursing home informed its hundreds of staff members this week that layoffs of some nonessential employees would begin Dec. 23, with the remaining staff slated to lose their jobs once the last resident had been evacuated.

"The owners of Cold Spring Hills’ attempt to endanger vulnerable residents and lay off their workers just days before the holidays was not only insensitive, it was illegal. My office took action to stop this illegal evacuation and protect these residents and workers. This decision will ensure the nursing home remains open and its staff continues to get paid,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement after the judge's ruling.

Paul Kremer, an attorney for Cold Spring Hills, declined to comment Friday on the judge's decision.

Many Cold Spring Hills residents suffer from dementia or are on ventilators, including 70 who are considered "hard to place," James' office said in a court motion Wednesday seeking the temporary restraining order.

The facility provided notice to state health officials of the planned action Monday evening, saying the "emergency evacuation" would begin Thursday, according to a filing from James' office.

The nursing home was seeking to eventually reopen under new ownership, according to a Tuesday letter to staff from Edline Joseph, the facility's administrator. Cold Spring Hills planned to close its doors Dec. 31, Joseph wrote. But the court decision forces the facility to stay open until at least the second week of the new year. 

"Today’s decision allows the dedicated nursing home staff to continue providing care to the residents of Cold Spring Hills through the holidays and into the new year," said George Gresham, president of 1199SEIU, the union representing most of the nursing home employees. "But hundreds of residents and their families deserve a long-term solution to this situation." 

In court Friday, Alee Scott, chief of the Civil Enforcement Division of James' Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, said nursing home magnate Bent Philipson, Cold Spring Hills' primary owner, and his son, Avi Philipson, the business' managing member, made the "unilateral, unapproved and illegal decision" to evacuate residents because they no longer want to pay their workers.

"They would claim a right to evacuate 300 people from their home involuntarily right before the holidays because they don't want to pay the wages. The Philipson family wants to protect their very substantial financial resources," Scott also argued.

Kremer said repeatedly in court this week that the nursing home doesn't have the resources to meet its $1.14 million weekly payroll and there were no legal grounds for the judge to grant the temporary restraining order.

"We are not evacuating because we think it's bad for the residents," Kremer told Cairo. "We're evacuating because we think that if we run out of resources and the residents are still in the facility, it's going to be catastrophic. We're trying to do our best to protect the residents of the facility from the impending complete insolvency."

The additional few weeks could provide the New York State Department of Health more time to consider a 707-page application that court proceedings showed Eliezer Jay Zelman submitted this week to become the facility's temporary receiver. 

Zelman, who owns several nursing homes elsewhere in New York, would then take over all operations, including paying staff. Court records show he also is considering the purchase of the facility.

A health department spokeswoman declined to comment Friday on Cairo's ruling. 

But in a Thursday affidavit, Heidi Hayes, director of the department's Center for Residential Surveillance in the Office of Aging and Long-Term Care, said she opposed the "illegal evacuation" of Cold Spring Hills residents.

The nursing home, she wrote, does not have a department-approved closure plan, as legally required, "and there is no provision for allowing a 'temporary emergency evacuation' because of the operator's financial instability."

The nursing home has been struggling for months to pay its staff, owes more than $50 million to creditors and has desperately been seeking a buyer.

Lisa Wickens-Alteri, the facility's court-appointed independent health monitor, told Cairo on Friday any evacuation was going to be "very difficult because of the timing and the stress and the number of residents with serious and persistent mental illness."

In December 2022, the state attorney general's office filed a lawsuit against the nursing home, charging that it neglected resident care and skirted state laws through a fraudulent business setup designed to enrich its owners.

In April, Cairo appointed Wickens-Alteri and imposed a $2 million penalty as part of the lawsuit's resolution.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.