NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FL — A Miami-Dade County jury has awarded $14.7 million to the family of Horace Brakes Jr., an 82-year-old resident who died from severe pressure wounds sustained while living at Krystal Bay Nursing and Rehabilitation, according to a report by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The verdict, returned in February 2026, stands as one of the largest nursing home neglect judgments in Miami-Dade County history — but the family now faces significant obstacles in actually collecting the money.
Brakes had been a resident at the 150-bed facility on Northeast 167th Street in North Miami Beach for approximately two years before his death, as reported by the Sun Sentinel. His children, who live outside of Florida, say they raised concerns about his care on multiple occasions during that period.
According to the Sun Sentinel's reporting, when Brakes was eventually transported from the nursing home to a hospital for cardiac issues, the treating physician was alarmed by the extent of his pressure wounds. His daughter, Jo Antoniette Brakes, recounted the physician's reaction: "The doctor said it looked horrible and that you could tell that he had not been receiving proper care." Brakes died the following day.
The family's attorney, Garrick Harding of Senior Justice Law Firm in Boca Raton, told the Sun Sentinel that the individuals behind the facility's ownership and management companies — Lizer Jozefovic and Steven Gottlieb, principals of Watercrest Acquisitions and Royal Meridian Management Corp. — have since dissolved the limited liability companies that controlled Krystal Bay during the time Brakes lived there. The facility remains open but now operates under different ownership and a different name.
According to Harding, no representative appeared in court on behalf of the former owners or management company despite being properly served with legal notices. "They took the strategy of 'we're just not going to respond, we think we're judgment proof, we're just going to dissolve these LLCs and then tell (the family) good luck getting blood from a stone,'" Harding told the Sun Sentinel.
Harding said his firm plans to pursue the former principals personally: "We're working with debt collection attorneys to chase them to the end of the Earth. You don't get to just fold up shop and run away from your responsibilities."
Another daughter, Rasheedah Warner, expressed frustration with how her father was treated. "They were taking his money but not doing what they were supposed to do for him," she told the Sun Sentinel. "I don't think anyone should have to suffer the way he did."
A Pattern of Litigation
The Brakes family verdict was not the first major judgment against the same ownership group. According to the Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale attorney Christopher W. Royer previously secured a $1.2 million jury verdict against Watercrest in 2025 on behalf of the family of Denis Fleurantin, who died at Krystal Bay in 2021. His family alleged he received inadequate nursing care and that staff failed to respond to his respiratory distress. As reported by the Sun Sentinel, that family is still attempting to collect on the judgment.
The cases highlight a broader problem in Florida's long-term care industry. While state law requires nursing homes to carry liability insurance as a condition of licensure, Florida does not mandate a specific minimum dollar amount for that coverage, according to Harding. As a result, many facilities carry little to no meaningful insurance, leaving families with large jury verdicts but no practical mechanism to collect.
"People don't think about if something goes wrong in a Florida nursing home, they won't have recourse because, in theory, they are supposed to carry insurance, but in reality, they don't," Royer told the Sun Sentinel.
CMS Inspection History
Federal inspection records maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provide additional context about the facility's track record. Pressure ulcers — also known as bedsores or decubitus ulcers — are a well-established indicator of nursing home care quality, and CMS tracks deficiencies related to pressure wound prevention and treatment under federal F-tag regulations, particularly F-686, which governs treatment and prevention of pressure ulcers.
Federal regulations require nursing homes to ensure that residents who enter a facility without pressure ulcers do not develop them unless clinically unavoidable, and that residents who arrive with existing wounds receive appropriate treatment. Facilities cited for pressure ulcer deficiencies face heightened scrutiny during subsequent survey cycles.
The dissolution of the companies that previously owned and managed Krystal Bay complicates any review of historical accountability. When nursing homes change ownership, prior deficiency records remain associated with the facility's CMS certification number, but new operators are not automatically held responsible for previous findings. This ownership transition structure has drawn criticism from patient advocates who argue it allows bad actors to escape regulatory consequences.
Ownership & Operations
The corporate structure described in the Sun Sentinel's reporting — where nursing home operators use layered limited liability companies to separate ownership from management — is a well-documented practice in the long-term care industry. According to nursing home litigation attorneys quoted in the Sun Sentinel report, this structure can make it extremely difficult for families to hold anyone financially accountable when care failures occur.
Florida's regulatory framework has come under repeated scrutiny for what advocates describe as insufficient safeguards against this type of corporate restructuring. When an LLC is dissolved, the assets associated with that entity may effectively disappear, leaving jury verdicts — even those in the tens of millions — uncollectible. The Brakes family case illustrates this dynamic clearly: a jury determined the family was owed $14.7 million, yet the mechanism for payment remains uncertain.
Resources for Families
Families who have concerns about the quality of care at a nursing home should know that multiple reporting channels are available. The Florida Long-Term Care Ombudsman program investigates complaints on behalf of nursing home residents and can be reached through the national hotline at 1-800-677-1116.
Complaints about nursing home care can also be filed directly with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the state agency responsible for licensing and inspecting long-term care facilities.
The National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center at [ltcombudsman.org](https://ltcombudsman.org) provides guidance on how to evaluate nursing home quality, understand inspection reports, and advocate for a loved one's care. Families are encouraged to review a facility's federal inspection history on Medicare's Care Compare website before selecting a nursing home and to document any concerns about care quality in writing.
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