Jaybird Senior Living Lawsuit: Deaths, Rent Hike, and Wage Claims

Jaybird Senior Living, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based operator formerly known as Senior Housing Management, has been the subject of multiple lawsuits since 2021, including two wrongful death matters tied to residents who froze after wandering from memory care units, an employment discrimination case brought by a fired worker, and a federal wage and hour class action. Most of the Jaybird Senior Living lawsuit filings have ended in settlements with undisclosed terms, while state regulators have separately fined several of the company’s Iowa communities and disciplined individual staff.

The Lynne Stewart Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The most prominent case arose from the death of Lynne Stewart, a 77-year-old resident with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease at Courtyard Estates at Hawthorne Crossing in Bondurant, Iowa. On the night of January 20, 2022, Stewart left through an exterior door at approximately 9:34 p.m. and remained outside in temperatures around 13 degrees below zero. Staff did not find her until about 6:10 a.m. the next morning, unconscious outside a locked door. Her body temperature registered at 77°F at the hospital, and she died of severe hypothermia.¹

In January 2024, the estates of Stewart and her daughter Sara Gwinn filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Iowa District Court for Polk County against AbiliT Holdings LLC, the property owner doing business as Courtyard Estates at Hawthorne Crossing, and Jaybird Senior Living, Inc., the management company. The petition alleged gross negligence, reckless disregard for safety, negligence per se based on violations of Iowa administrative code, and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision of employees.² Sara Gwinn had died in November 2023, and her estate sought damages for the loss of her mother’s companionship and support.¹

The complaint described a monitoring system the family said was chronically unreliable. Door alarms were, in some cases, attached with double-sided tape rather than secure hardware, generating frequent false alerts that desensitized staff. iPads used to receive alerts often failed to charge or report notifications, and management was allegedly aware of the problems. The petition also noted that Catherine Forkpa, the night shift worker responsible for the memory care unit, had received only 4.75 hours of dementia training, below Iowa’s eight-hour minimum.³ State investigators later confirmed that the door alarm triggered by Stewart’s exit sent alerts to staff devices for roughly 15 to 17 hours without any response.⁴

The case settled out of court several weeks after filing, before the defendants submitted a formal response. Financial terms were not disclosed.⁴

The Earlier Creasey Death and Its Role in the Stewart Case

The Stewart petition drew heavily on an incident 43 days earlier at another Jaybird-managed facility. On December 8, 2021, 95-year-old Elaine Creasey wandered from her room at Keelson Harbour Senior Living in Spirit Lake, Iowa, shortly before 10 p.m., setting off a door alarm that staff did not check. She was found the next morning after overnight temperatures had dropped to 14 degrees, and she died of hypothermia.⁵

Creasey’s family filed a civil suit against the facility and the temporary staffing agency that employed the worker on duty, Brooke Arndt, accusing them of negligence and reckless disregard for safety. Arndt was charged by the Iowa Board of Nursing with failing to properly assess and evaluate a resident’s status; she received a one-year license probation and had to complete 30 hours of additional professional education. Keelson Harbour was fined $10,000 by the state for staff training violations.⁵

The Stewart plaintiffs cited the Creasey death directly, arguing that Jaybird’s failure to implement corrective measures after December 2021 amounted to willful and wanton disregard for resident safety.³

The Sally Daniels Employment Discrimination Lawsuit

In April 2023, Sally Daniels, a former resident assistant at Courtyard Estates, sued AbiliT Holdings and Jaybird Senior Living, alleging she was scapegoated and wrongly fired after Stewart’s death. Daniels claimed the facility blamed her and another Black worker, Catherine Forkpa, while excusing white staff members who had also ignored door alarms and failed to notice Stewart’s absence for nearly nine hours. She said she was the worker who first alerted others that Stewart was missing.⁶

The defendants denied wrongdoing. Daniels formally dismissed the case in February 2025 after notifying the court of a pending settlement, the terms of which were not disclosed.⁶

Criminal and Administrative Actions Tied to the Stewart Death

Alongside the civil lawsuit, two individual proceedings arose from the same night. Catherine Forkpa, the overnight worker responsible for the memory care unit, was initially charged with second-degree murder. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of dependent adult abuse and received two years of probation.⁴

In January 2026, the Iowa Board of Nursing Home Administrators charged Dwala Marie Lehman, then the administrator at Courtyard Estates, with professional incompetence. Lehman acknowledged in a deposition that it was “possible” she saw alarm notifications that night and failed to contact staff; investigators found she slept through a series of text alerts that continued for roughly 17 hours. Under a settlement with the board, Lehman kept her license but was placed on one-year probation, required to complete 10 hours of training on resident wandering, submit a report on what she learned, and file quarterly compliance reports.²⁷

Courtyard Estates itself was fined $10,000 by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals for failures in resident monitoring, alarm maintenance, and dementia-specific training. The fine was later reduced to $6,500 after the facility chose not to appeal.⁴

State Fines at Other Jaybird Facilities

Two other Jaybird-managed Iowa communities were cited by state regulators for door alarm and elopement problems in the same window. In April 2022, Keystone Cedars Memory Care in Cedar Rapids received a $2,500 fine after inspectors found the facility failed to follow its own alarm and elopement policies; a resident with severe cognitive decline had left the memory care unit multiple times between September 2021 and January 2022. Inspectors concluded that “the memory door alarms either failed to alarm per policy and procedure or staff failed to respond to the door alarms per policy and procedure.”⁸

In March 2023, Edencrest at Beaverdale in Des Moines was fined $3,000 after a memory care resident exited a facility door unnoticed in October 2022. A staff member told inspectors alarms went off so frequently she had become desensitized, asking, “I get alerts all the time so what am I supposed to do about that?” Multiple employees admitted clearing or resetting alarms without the required head counts.⁹

The River Glen Rent Increase Dispute

Not every conflict involving Jaybird has produced litigation. In 2023, after Jaybird Capital and Citrine Investment Group purchased River Glen of St. Charles in Illinois for $20 million, residents of 28 townhouses were told the community was converting from an entrance-fee model to monthly rentals. New rates were set at $6,100 for interior units and $6,650 for end units. For Vietnam War veteran Martha Bray, that meant a jump from $1,395 per month to $6,500, an increase of roughly 365%. Residents had until August 1 to accept the new terms or vacate by October 1, and departing residents were told they would receive 75% of their original entrance fees, minus a $4,000 “community fee,” instead of the 85% of current market value promised in their original contracts.¹⁰

CEO Kevin Russell said the changes were “guided by the increasing demand for rental structures versus buy-in” and that the rents reflected “fair-market value.”¹⁰ Attorney Patrick M. Griffin, who represented several residents, concluded a lawsuit was “viable” but “no sure thing,” and the residents opted against litigation because of the potential cost. A second attorney reviewing another resident’s contracts independently concluded Jaybird’s actions were legal under the existing agreement, and no state law barred the new owner from altering the contracts in this way. About 20 residents moved out; roughly five stayed under legacy contracts.¹¹

The Bracher Wage and Hour Case

Jaybird has also been the defendant in federal employment litigation unrelated to resident care. In July 2021, Kimberly Bracher filed a class and collective action against Jaybird Senior Living LLC and WIRC LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In Bracher v. Jaybird Senior Living LLC et al, Case No. 2:21-cv-00889, Judge Brett H. Ludwig granted final approval of a settlement in December 2022, awarded Bracher a $1,500 service payment, and approved $39,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs. The case was dismissed with prejudice.¹²

1
Des Moines Register. Iowa Nursing Home Lawsuit Dementia Patient Exposure Courtyard Estates Lynne Stewart Wrongful Death
2
McKnight’s Senior Living. Former Assisted Living Executive Retains License but Must Complete Training Following Freezing Death of Resident
3
rhislop3.com. Lynne Stewart Death Petition
4
News From the States. Assisted Living Resident Freezes to Death, Training Ordered for Administrator
5
McKnight’s Senior Living. Assisted Living Worker Faces Murder Charge in Freezing Death
6
Des Moines Register. Iowa Nursing Home Lawsuit Settlement Courtyard Estates Hawthorne Crossing Bondurant
7
Iowa Capital Dispatch. Assisted Living Resident Freezes to Death, Training Ordered for Administrator
8
Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Keystone Cedars Memory Care Citation
9
Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Edencrest at Beaverdale Citation
10
NBC News. Vietnam Vet Found Dream Senior Living Community, New Owners Jacked Rent
11
Shaw Local News Network. St. Charles Elders Had to Accept New Rental Costs or Leave
12
PACER Monitor. Bracher v Jaybird Senior Living LLC et al