Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said basic practices were not followed at the start of the pandemic. Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

A Massachusetts nursing home owner is out of the business and out of $175,000 due to a legal settlement over alleged insufficient infection prevention practices at the start of the pandemic.

Attorney General Maura Healey on Thursday said her office had reached an agreement with Sea View Retreat in seaside Rowley, MA, and owner Stephen Comley II. The AG’s office began investigating Sea View’s pandemic response in June 2020 based on complaints received by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Officials brought a civil suit against the provider in May 2022.

The settlement requires Sea View and Comley to pay the state a total of $175,000; Comley also agreed to no longer own, operate or manage a long-term care or assisted living facility in Massachusetts.

“By failing to implement basic infection control procedures at the start of the pandemic, this nursing home violated state regulations and jeopardized the health and safety of its vulnerable residents and patients,” Healey said in announcing the settlement. “This agreement ensures that Sea View and its owner will never again be responsible for Massachusetts patients in long-term care facilities.”

Comley, the facility’s third-generation family operator, could not be reached for comment Friday. A voicemail left at a number listed for Sea View was not returned by deadline.

Once licensed for 140 beds, the building had more recently averaged 62 patients. That level had fallen to just 22 in late 2021, according to local media. In September 2021, Comley threatened to close rather than fire staff that remained unvaccinated against COVID. He was back in the media in February, when state health officials needed a court order to gain access for an inspection determining whether residents were still living at the facility. 

The AG’s office said Friday that the nursing home closed in early 2022.

According to the AG’s complaint, the investigation revealed that Sea View and Comley failed to implement “basic” infection control and prevention procedures, including resident cohorting, surveillance testing, staff screening at entries, and training on the correct use of personal protective equipment.

“This wholesale failure to implement infection control and prevention allegedly resulted in some residents contracting, and in at least one circumstance, dying from, COVID-19,” Healey’s office said Thursday.

The AG’s complaint said that, because Sea View and Comley failed to implement mandatory procedures, claims billed by Sea View to the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, during this time were improper and constituted false claims. The $175,000 settlement will be split between the Commonwealth’s Long-Term Care Facility Quality Improvement Fund and MassHealth.