Court upholds Manse on Marsh manslaughter verdict — and it sets a state precedent
A California court rejected an appeal by the owner of a since-sold San Luis Obispo senior assisted living facility who was found criminally liable for the death of a resident with dementia.
Christopher Edward Skiff, former owner of the Manse on Marsh living center in downtown San Luis Obispo, was sentenced to serve a full 180 days in San Luis Obispo County Jail after he was convicted in a December 2018 trial of involuntary manslaughter and elder abuse for the death of 65-year-old facility resident Mauricio Edgar Cardenas.
Skiff faced a maximum of eight years in prison.
A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge prohibited Skiff from having any involvement in the day-to-day operations of any adult care facility in the future, but granted his application to postpone serving the jail sentence pending his appeal, which was filed less than two months following his conviction.
On Jan. 4, the California Court of Appeal affirmed the jury’s decision, finding that Skiff “willfully permitted Cardenas to remain in a residential placement that was dangerous to him and that ultimately caused his death.”
According to the California Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case because The Manse was a state-licensed facility, the appellate court’s decision is the first published opinion in California addressing and upholding a homicide conviction of an owner or licensee resulting from the foreseeable death of a residential care facility resident.
Skiff was charged along with The Manse’s executive director, Gary Potts. Potts was being tried separately from Skiff when he accepted a plea agreement to plead no contest to a count of elder abuse. For his plea, Potts was granted probation.
Jurors found during Skiff’s nearly monthlong trial that Cardenas, as a person diagnosed with dementia, should not have been living at the facility, which was not licensed to care for dementia patients.
It had twice previously been cited for admitting patients for which it was not licensed.
Cardenas, who had been an independent-minded resident in his short time at the facility, according to testimony, was struck by a car Dec. 21, 2014, as he walked or jogged on a dark stretch of Los Osos Valley Road roughly 10 miles from the facility.
Mark Cumba, a deputy with the California Attorney General’s Office, told jurors in the trial that Skiff and Potts conspired to admit residents with dementia and related symptoms to increase profits even though they knew they weren’t licensed to care for him.
Several employees, some of whom testified against their former boss, told a state investigator that the business’ attempts to admit dementia patients was “an accident waiting to happen.”
Skiff’s attorney, Robert Sanger, argued that the state’s case was based on information from “disgruntled former employees” and pointed out that two other state agencies — the CHP and Department of Social Services — had not found the facility was at fault for Cardenas’ death.
In his appeal, Skiff argued that he did not intentionally cause Cardenas’ death and that regulations governing residential care facilities prevented him from restricting Cardenas’ movements.
In its Jan. 4 ruling, the Court of Appeal wrote that a corporate officer may be guilty of involuntary manslaughter if he or she was aware of certain “omissions” and failed to control them.
“There was substantial evidence that Skiff knew admitting Cardenas to the facility was unlawful and knew it was unsafe to allow him to wander in the community unsupervised, yet did nothing to protect him,” the ruling reads. “Substantial evidence established that Skiff acted with criminal negligence when he disregarded the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the concerns of his staff, and when he allowed Cardenas to continue as a resident of a facility that did not monitor or safeguard his activities but allowed him to wander without supervision.”
While Cardenas was known to refuse to sign out or wear a GPS monitor, that “did not eliminate the licensee’s obligation to protect him,” the ruling reads.
“If the facility is not appropriate for the resident, it should have evicted him,” the court said.
A representative from the Attorney General’s Press Office wrote in an email that the court will now schedule a hearing to proceed with Skiff’s sentence. No date had yet been scheduled in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Thursday.
Cardenas’ family also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against both Skiff and Potts in March 2020. A case management conference in that ongoing civil case is scheduled for Jan. 12.
Skiff sold ownership of The Manse on Marsh about six months after his trial to Pacifica Senior Living Management, which operates the new senior living community, now called Avila Senior Living of Downtown SLO.
