DSS denies claims in wrongful death suit

DARLINGTON — Attorneys for the S.C. Department of Social Services have denied claims made against the agency in a wrongful death lawsuit that alleges DSS case workers witnessed a Darlington woman starving to death and did nothing to save her.

According to a lawsuit filed March 10 in 4th Circuit Court, two DSS case workers visited Mary Terry’s Darlington home at least 11 times to care for her mother and did nothing after they saw a malnourished Terry lying on a couch in her own excrement.

Terry died Feb. 13 at a Florence hospital about two weeks after EMS workers removed both women from the home.

Terry’s brother, Clarence Sims, and Andrew Gurley are named as plaintiffs and the personal representatives of Terry’s estate in the lawsuit that also names DSS case workers Lisa Gibson and Ada Antoine as defendants.

According to an answer filed May 13 in Darlington County by the agency’s attorney, Kate Rice, DSS admits it began providing care to Terry in 2001 and closed its case file on her in 2005, but denies that Antoine had a personal relationship with Terry. The answer also denied that Antoine knew Terry was vulnerable to malnourishment and other ailments that prevented her from caring for herself.

DSS was also aware that Terry’s son, Timothy Sims, provided care to his mother in 2005, according to the answer. DSS, however, denies details of the lawsuit that charge the agency knew Sims was an alcoholic and had been convicted of assault and battery and criminal domestic violence.
The lawsuit alleges that case workers visited the home where Terry lived with her 82-year-old mother, Pelham Sims, in January and saw that there wasn’t any heat in the home and the stove was broken.

The lawsuit also alleges that in January, Sims was unkempt, unbathed and lay in a bed covered with filth, human waste stains and rat feces.
In its answer, DSS denies those allegations and demands the plaintiffs submit proof.

The agency did say that case workers provided care to Sims in January.

According to an answer filed May 12 by D. Malloy McEachin Jr., Gibson and Antoine’s attorney, the case workers cannot be held liable for Terry’s death because her demise was related to the actions of a third party.

McEachin also said in the answer that the proper defendants in the case are the governmental entities that employ Gibson and Antoine.

Gibson, 38, of 105 Pettigrew St. in Lamar was arrested March 14 and faces a misdemeanor charge of failure to report the abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult.

Timothy Sims and his cousin Les Williams, 53, both of 402 Second St. in Darlington where the women were living, each were arrested in January and charged with two counts of abuse of a vulnerable adult.

After Terry’s death, one of the counts was upgraded to a higher statute of abuse of a vulnerable adult, which is punishable by as many as 30 years in prison, instead of just 15, Darlington Police Capt. Danny Watson said.