A Boca Raton family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yamato Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, claiming staff let their mother lie in bed for 27 days in significant pain with a broken hip that went untreated before she died in October 2024. The complaint alleges Agatha Marie Caputo, an elderly, bedbound and oxygen-dependent resident who relied on staff for transfers, repositioning and hygiene, suffered a closed right hip fracture, a head injury and a rib contusion after falling from her bed and being found on the floor beside it.
According to Boca Post, Boca Raton Fire Rescue transported Caputo to Boca Raton Regional Hospital on October 5, 2024, where imaging revealed the fracture. The complaint states that surgery was not viable given her existing conditions, and after a 25-day hospital stay, she returned to the facility on October 7, 2024. Facility assessments had already identified her as at high risk of falling from bed, yet the complaint alleges no bed-safety devices were in place at the time of the fall. Hospice staff found she had stopped breathing on October 30, 2024, and she was pronounced dead at the facility that day.
A Pattern That Predates the Fatal Fall
The lawsuit, filed September 4, 2026, in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, names Boca Opco, LLC — which owned and operated the facility — and Palm Beach Health Consulting, LLC, which the complaint says controlled staffing, budgeting and resident care, as co-defendants. The case, Francis William Caputo, as prospective personal representative of the estate of Agatha Marie Caputo, v. Boca Opco, LLC and Palm Beach Health Consulting, LLC, carries case number 50-2026-CA-009998-XXXA-MB and has been placed on the general track with a jury trial order in the court's central civil division.
The complaint alleges Caputo developed pressure wounds beginning in 2021, and by fall 2024 had wounds on her feet, heels, calves and lower back. In July 2024, she reported that she had fallen and been left on the floor, but the complaint alleges the facility produced no incident report for that fall. As her condition worsened, she became progressively nonverbal in October 2024. Attorneys allege the defendants failed to monitor, turn and reposition her, failed to provide timely hygiene care, failed to treat infections, and failed to keep her family informed.
Statutory Staffing Rules and Legal Exposure
Caputo had been admitted to Yamato Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, located at 375 NW 51st St. in Boca Raton, on January 23, 2018. Under Florida Statute § 400.023, civil claims for nursing home negligence extend directly to facility licensees, management or consulting entities, managing employees and direct caregivers — which is why both Boca Opco and Palm Beach Health Consulting are named as defendants, according to the Florida Senate. Separately, Florida Statute § 400.23 requires skilled nursing facilities to provide a minimum weekly average of 3.6 hours of direct care per resident day, including at least 2.0 hours from certified nursing assistants and 1.0 hour from licensed nurses — a baseline directly relevant to the complaint's allegations of unmonitored residents and delayed hygiene care.
Before filing, the family served presuit notices as required under Florida's nursing home law, which under Florida Statute § 400.0233 triggers a mandatory 75-day period for informal discovery and settlement evaluation. Requests to produce and initial interrogatories were filed against both defendants on September 4, 2026, and a summons was issued to Palm Beach Health Consulting, LLC that same day, though the clerk directed the plaintiff to correct and resubmit a second summons because the name did not match the complaint. The estate, represented by Michael H. Kugler of GoldLaw, P.A. in West Palm Beach, has four surviving children.
Damages Sought and Unanswered Questions
The complaint contains four counts, with survival counts seeking damages for the pain Caputo allegedly endured before her death and wrongful death counts seeking damages arising from that death. The estate says it incurred medical and funeral expenses, and the lawsuit — brought under Chapter 400 of the Florida Statutes — seeks damages in excess of $50,000, plus interest, costs and fees under Florida's nursing home statute, along with a trial by jury. No hearing date has been listed, and the court has made no finding of liability; the claims remain allegations not yet proven in court, Boca Post notes. As of the filing reviewed by that outlet, the defendants have provided no response.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Palm Beach County
The Caputo case is not an isolated complaint against the facility's operators. In May 2026, Boca Opco LLC and Excelsior Care Group LLC were named co-defendants in a separate Palm Beach County wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of Marilyn Kirschner, alleging severe neglect including pressure wounds, falls and untreated infections that led to a resident's death, according to reporting reviewed for this story. Yamato Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is a 180-bed facility affiliated with Excelsior Care Group, a chain that manages 33 nursing homes across three states as of August 2026, and it carries a below-average 2-star overall rating out of 5 on Medicare's Care Compare system, driven primarily by weak health inspection performance.
The scrutiny extends beyond this single facility. In January 2026, a registered nurse filed a whistleblower suit alleging retaliation after reporting severe wound neglect and unsanitary conditions at another Boca Raton rehabilitation facility. Boca Raton is home to 28 senior care facilities, including 11 Medicare-certified skilled nursing homes, making it one of the largest long-term care clusters in Palm Beach County — a reflection of local demand, since roughly 24.6% of the city's estimated 100,234 residents are age 65 or older. With long-term nursing home care in Florida carrying a median monthly cost of $10,342 for a semi-private room, families across the region continue to weigh steep costs against uneven quality ratings as similar lawsuits work their way through the courts.
