The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ordered a new trial on compensatory damages against a nursing home management services provider, as well as on punitive damages against that company and its nursing home client in a long-running suit over a resident's death.

The court's published Aug. 8 ruling in Scampone v. Highland Park Care Center came nearly five years after a landmark state Supreme Court ruling in the case. In late 2012, the justices ruled in Scampone that nursing homes could be found directly liable under a theory of corporate negligence.

Following that decision—referred to as Scampone II—the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Allegheny County trial court for a determination as to whether defendant nursing home Highland Park Care Center and defendant management services provider Grane Associates owed a duty of care in direct corporate liability to Madeline Scampone, a Highland resident who died at age 94 after being diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, dehydration, malnutrition and bed sores.