Articles Tagged with nursing home abuse lawyer

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It was only recently that health officials in Iowa learned it was not illegal for someone to share photos of a nursing home resident covered in feces. 

This loophole in the law was only discovered when a certified nursing assistant shared one such humiliating photograph of an elderly patient on the social media platform Snapchat. They moved to take action, but realized there wasn’t much they could do. In this case, the state law crafted to protect elderly, dependent adults from exploitation and abuse was last updated eight years ago – well before some of the most popular apps existed.

While the statute does prohibit sexual exploitation of a person by a caretaker, this particular photo didn’t show any genitals, so the law was not applicable. So while the nurse was fired, neither state health officials nor the police were able to take any action.  Continue reading →

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Police in Lantana have arrested an 87-year-old nursing home resident after a staffer reportedly walked in on him performing oral sex on a 94-year-old male resident at the facility. The alleged victim suffers from Parkinson’s disease and was not able to answer the staff or police questions beyond unintelligible responses. Despite this, the suspect reportedly told staffers the alleged victim “wanted him to” do what he was doing. 

Nursing home administrators, while declining to talk to reporters about the incident, did say that the media had, “blown the incident out of proportion.”

When it comes to sexual assault of an elderly, disabled victim, it’s hard to imagine making it a bigger deal than it is. The reality is that if these allegations are true, the facility failed in its responsibility to properly supervise residents, particularly where the alleged perpetrator was known to be “oversexed” and had gotten in trouble in the past for groping both staffers and other patients. Continue reading →

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The enforceability of nursing home arbitration agreements often rests on: Who signed it? And furthermore, what authority did that person have to do so? 

It’s a key point in many nursing home abuse lawsuits because arbitration agreements prohibit residents – and their estates – from suing the nursing home in court. Instead, they are forced to seek resolution of any dispute from a binding arbitration. There are so many downsides to arbitration for the plaintiff, starting with the fact that arbitrators tend to decide cases more favorably toward the nursing homes. Beyond that, the proceedings aren’t public and arbitrators aren’t even bound to abide by the law.

Although arbitration agreements are binding contracts, the good news is that courts are analyzing them with a great deal more scrutiny than ever before. There are a few arguments that injury lawyers who handle nursing home abuse cases can approach this.  Continue reading →

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A nursing home abuse lawsuit has been remanded for a new trial – but solely on the personal injury claim, not the wrongful death claim – by the West Virginia Supreme Court. 

The court ruled the lower court erred in failing to apply certain tolling provisions and discovery rules that would have allowed her to present evidence central to her case.

In Williams v. CMO Mgmt., the patient in question was an Alzheimer’s sufferer who resided at defendant facility for a decade, from June 2001 to June 2011. Following his death in early July 2011, plaintiff, as representative of decedent’s estate, filed a lawsuit alleging personal injury and wrongful death as a result of neglect and abuse patient suffered while a patient at facility. Plaintiff also sought damages in connection with systemic issues at the nursing home related to understaffing, poor allocation of resources and budgeting and problems with certain policies and procedures. She wanted to recover for injuries her father had sustained from 2009 until his death.

At all times relevant, decedent was mentally incompetent.  Continue reading →

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A jury in Colorado has awarded the family of a former patient $5.5 million in damages – which included $5 million in punitive damages – following the death of a patient in 2013, just six months after she was admitted. 

Attorneys who represented her family announced in a press release the record-setting award in that county, which was based on the fact that her death was reportedly preceded by months of repeated abuse and neglect. The damage award was imposed against both defendants, the nursing home itself and its corporate parent, Life Care Centers of America, Inc. In Florida, there are more than two dozen nursing homes owned by this same corporation, including two in Orlando and one in West Palm Beach.

The press release asserted this was a company that, like so many others, put profits ahead of patient care. There with issues with poor care, gaps in charting and staffing shortages – all of which resulted in a fatal outcome for decedent, plaintiff’s mother. Continue reading →

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Nursing home arbitration agreements have become the new normal anytime a patient is admitted to a facility. These agreements are intended to limit the patient’s or family’s access to courts for resolution of disputes, such as those that arise as a result of nursing home abuse or nursing home neglect or nursing home negligence. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce or eliminate the complainant’s ability to collect damages from the nursing home. Arbitration agreements and arbitrators tend to be far more friendly to the business than the individual.

Although courts will uphold these agreements as they would any other contract, there is an emerging legal trend that involves finding these agreements either invalid or against public policy. There are a number of arguments that could be effective. One is to cite that the person who signed the document on the patient’s behalf had no legal authority to do so. Another, which emerged recently with the case of Estate of Novosett v. Arc Villages II, before Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal in March 2016, was to argue the damage caps and elimination of punitive damages were against public policy and could not be severed from the rest of the agreement. The 5th DCA sided with the plaintiff in that case.

And that brings us to the most recent Florida nursing home arbitration agreement decision, which was also handed down by the 5th DCA in Estate of Reinshagen v. WRYP ALF LLC. Continue reading →

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The family of an 87-year-old California woman wanted to ensure she was taken care of. That’s why they invested in one of the best regional facilities money could buy for her elder age care. And yet, she still succumbed to one of the most unnecessary and painful forms of death: Complication from pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores. 

Her untimely death, according to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, spurred a wrongful death lawsuit against the facility that recently resulted in a $1 million settlement.

Medical records indicated the woman died from sepsis after nursing home staffers allegedly erred in treating a pressure ulcer on her back. Proper care was not received until the sore became heavily infected, at which point it was too late to reverse the effects.  Continue reading →

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An increasing number of nursing home abuse lawsuits boil down to this single question: Who signed the admissions contract?

Specifically at issue is who signed the provision compelling arbitration or agreeing to release the center from liability. The reason this question is central is because if the person who signed was not authorized to do so on behalf of the patient, the contract is invalid,. That means plaintiff has the right to sue.

In some cases, if the patient personally signed the contract, was he or she legally fit to do so? Many times, the answer is no, and that too can work in a plaintiff’s favor.

This issue was recently underscored by The New York Times, which highlighted a 2009 case in which a nursing home resident was murdered by her roommate. Her son sought to hold the nursing home accountable for this violent act.  Continue reading →

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A former nursing home owner is being held personally responsible to pay $1.6 million after a court found he tried to transfer money from the facility’s bank accounts to avoid payment of previous court judgments handed down for abuse of residents. 

According to media reports of the case, one of the earlier judgments against his facility was for $1.21 million, and was to go to three daughters, the surviving family members of a woman who had been abused at his nursing home in Oklahoma. The women had sued the owner for mental and physical abuse.

That abuse, which was captured on video, showed staff at the nursing home stuffing a rubber glove into the elderly woman’s mouth, slapping her about the head and face, forcefully throwing her down on to the bed and hitting her on the chest.

Continue reading →
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The largest nursing home rehabilitation therapy provider in the nation has agreed to a $125 million settlement after federal prosecutors accused the firm of submitting phony Medicare claims. 

RehabCare, a subsidiary of Kindred Healthcare Inc., Kentucky-based company, and operators of four facilities, allegedly submitted claims for Medicare service bills that were either not reasonable, not necessary or that simply never occurred.

Why does this matter to patients in nursing homes? First, this is far from an isolated incident. Secondly, when a nursing home or other care facility is more interested in stacking its dollars than in making sure its patients get the right level of care based on their individual needs, patients are at risk for illness, injury and even death. Continue reading →

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