New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has announced a settlement with the families of veterans who died due to the state’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, agreeing to pay nearly $53 million to victims’ families who died in veterans’ homes during the pandemic, as reported by Just the News.
The settlement comes after families of veterans who died of Covid-19 sued the state for failures during the early period of the pandemic. Proper protocols the state failed to follow include wearing masks, maintaining enough testing supplies, and quarantining infected patients as well as staff.
In total, the Murphy administration agreed to pay a total of $52.9 million to families who filed suit against the state, which will be allocated roughly to $445,000 per family.
“The families of those who have lost their lives to COVID-19 have gone through so much,” an official with the Murphy administration told NJ.com in a recent interview. “This settlement will hopefully allow them to move forward without years of protracted and uncertain litigation.”
The settlement agreement focuses on two large veterans homes in New Jersey, including Menlo Park and Paramus, which reported the deaths of over 200 residents. New Jersey, despite implementing some of the most stringent Covid-19 protocols was the epicenter of the pandemic in 2020.