Filed Monday in Clark County, a new lawsuit lays out a grim story: a teenage patient says she was sexually assaulted by a staff member inside Spring Mountain Treatment Center while she was admitted as a minor. The complaint identifies the plaintiff only by her initials and says she was 16 when she entered the Las Vegas residential program, alleging that the abuse continued over roughly a yearlong stay. Her attorneys say staff threatened to tamper with her treatment schedule to keep her from reporting what was happening.
What the complaint alleges
As detailed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the complaint says a staffer repeatedly came into the teen’s room at night and assaulted her. The filing lays out claims of negligent hiring, training and supervision, intentional infliction of emotional distress and battery, and it alleges that staff threatened to disrupt the patient’s treatment schedule if she spoke up.
The suit says the plaintiff, identified as F.D., was admitted to Spring Mountain in 2004 at age 16 and remained there for about a year. It asks the district court to hold both the facility and its corporate owners responsible for what the complaint characterizes as an avoidable pattern of abuse.
UHS, Spring Mountain and the 2020 settlement
On its own website, Spring Mountain describes itself as a 110-bed inpatient behavioral hospital serving adolescents and adults. Valley Health System lists Spring Mountain in its network, and local pages note that the hospital system is operated by a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, a national for-profit operator.
In 2020 the Justice Department said UHS agreed to pay roughly $117 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that some of its facilities billed for medically unnecessary inpatient behavioral services and failed to provide adequate care. The settlement returned money to the federal government and participating states, and plaintiffs’ lawyers and advocates often point to that enforcement action as context for newer suits that accuse facilities of staffing, supervision and billing failures.
Legal claims, representation and timeline
Attorneys from Claggett & Sykes filed the complaint on behalf of the woman identified as F.D. and say they are seeking both financial damages and broader accountability…