ROWLEY – The Sea View Retreat long-term care facility has been exonerated by an administrative magistrate in the state Public Health Department of charges that it committed deceit, malpractice, gross misconduct and was incompetent in closing the decades-old nursing home during the Covid Pandemic.
The facility was closed and several dozen residents transferred to other nursing facilities in August 2021. Owner Stephen Comley II said last week he is considering suing the state for the loss of revenue from closing and for the substantial fines assessed by the state.
He said he expects he will have to sell the beautiful mansion and acreage, which had been in his family for 70 years, to pay his lawyer fees.
“Petitioner (the state) did NOT meet their burden of proof on any of the alleged grounds for discipline,” wrote Nancy Rothstein, administrative magistrate for the Department of Public Health.
The contentious relationship between Sea View and the state developed during the Covid Pandemic has been in Superior Court when the Attorney General’s office filed a civil suit against Comley, who operated the long-term care facility for 30 years. The Attorney General claimed Comley failed to comply with state and federal regulations designed to protect residents when he closed the nursing home.
Comley was accused of violating the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act and the Massachusetts False Claims Act. Comley settled, paying a fine of $175,000. He was also accused of violating the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act and the Massachusetts False Claims Act. That suit sought $2.5 million in fines.
The magistrate conducted a hearing on the dispute with Sea View over four days in October 2023. It found that Comley and the staff always treated the patients “like family.” He spent lots of time with the patients, knew their names, their likes and dislikes and would take them out of the home for leisure activities, the magistrate wrote in a 36-page decision.
The state prosecutor asserted that Comley “was incompetent” by not notifying the state that he was closing Sea View.
The magistrate disagreed, writing, “the evidence showed that Respondent (Comley) was conscientious about following mandates and regulations, which was the reason Sea View transferred all its residents in late 2021 and provided each with a 30-dayNotice of transfer or discharge.”
Sea View, which was operated for more than 70 years by three generations of the Comley family, closed largely because of chronic shortages of staff and Sea View’s inability to admit new residents due to state regulations issued during the Pandemic.
Comley still maintains the 44,000-square-foot building at 50 Mansion Dr. that he is currently using as a rehabilitation facility. ♦
