Minot assisted living facility sues Burgum, North Dakota Department of Health

A Minot assisted living facility has filed a lawsuit against North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and the North Dakota Department of Health. Governor Burgum acknowledged the suit during his press conference Thursday afternoon at the State Capitol in Bismarck.

The suit is being brought forward by Somerset Court in Minot, according to its director, David Caldwell. The suit is brought forward in regard to executive orders from Governor Doug Burgum, which shut down personal care facilities. These personal care facilities include beauty shops and salons. More specifically, the suit involves the beauty shop on site at Somerset Court.

“Somerset Court has initiated this action in the hopes of bringing a swift resolution to a situation that has proven for weeks to be mentally and physically harmful to our residents,” a statement from Caldwell says. “It is of vital importance to many of our residents to have a safe environment where we can assist them in maintaining their hygiene and self-esteem.”

Burgum says he understands the concerns.

“We’re deeply empathetic, but we also understand that the rate of where we can have the highest and fastest rate of outbreak that could be fatal would be inside a long-term care facility,” he says. “And now, you’ve got an intersection of something that, by definition, puts people within transmissible contact for more than 15 minutes.”

The governor said he’ll examine the lawsuit but is continuing to work on opening the state.

“We’ll take a look at the lawsuit,” he says. “But, meanwhile, we’re going to try to work to both reopen personal care businesses and protect our elderly.”