Philadelphia City Hall
PHILADELPHIA – A health care management company is ordered to pay more than $18 million for a mass killing in 2019 that lawyers say could have prevented with simple paperwork.
Maurice Louis shot four family members, including a 7-year-old stepbrother, after discharge from a crisis center. Lawsuits in Philadelphia alleged Louis never would have been able to buy the shotgun he used had Horizon Health Management submitted the proper documents to authorities.
He’d been involuntarily committed in 2018 after his mother found him talking about killing others. After nine days at Mercy Fitzgerald, he was let go. Mercy and Horizon failed to submit a required gun form to the Office of Behavioral Health, which would have passed it on to the State Police, the suits say.
The following year, his mother took him back to Mercy. But the psychiatrist wasn’t available, and he was discharged. The next day, he bought a shotgun and murdered his mother, stepfather and two stepbrothers.
Louis faces 40-80 years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of third-degree murder. Mercy settled the lawsuits against it but was still apportioned fault in the jury’s verdict reached this week. It does not have to pay that share, thanks to the settlement.
But Horizon took the case to trial and will pay a total of $18,325,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, plus interest, Colin Burke of Kline & Specter said. He represented the estates of stepfather Leslie Holmes Jr., and stepbrother Leslie Ann Woodson.
“The jury’s verdict leaves no doubt that Horizon’s egregious failures were a direct cause in these four preventable deaths,” Burke added.
“Horizon has finally been held accountable for their role in this horrific tragedy and we thank the jury for their important work on this case.”
Attorneys at Saltz Mongeluzzi and Bendesky represented the estates of mother Janet Woodson and stepbrother Sy-eed Woodson. Attorney Jeffrey Goodman said, “Any time 12 citizens come together and hold a corporate wrongdoer accountable is a good day for the civil justice system.”
Louis, who was struggling with mental illness, confessed to police hours after the bodies were discovered on Walton Ave. He was sitting naked in a chair drinking liquor when police forced their way into the residence, reports say.
