Articles Tagged with nursing home negligence

Falls are a leading cause of death among older Americans, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and South Florida injury attorneys know nursing home residents are especially susceptible. They’re more likely to be immobile or require significant assistance in moving just to complete basic tasks and functions. They are more likely to be in poorer health to start with, and in turn may have a more difficult time recovering.nursing home falls West Palm Beach

None of this, however, should be understood to mean that nursing home falls are inevitable or that nursing home staff is not responsible to take adequate prevention measures. In fact, nursing home operators have a responsibility to make sure patients don’t fall. That’s because the likelihood of falls as a result of certain conditions/failure to meet care standards is known. The fact that such a fall can result in serious injury? That’s known too. Complications from falls are known to lead to pain, functional impairment, disability and death among nursing home residents.  For this reason, Florida nursing home injury attorneys can assert that falls and resulting injuries in a nursing home setting are a foreseeable consequence of things like:

  • Inadequate staffing of nursing homes.
  • Inadequate training of staffers.
  • Inadequate supervision of nursing home staff.
  • Failure to provide the proper resources necessary.

Even if the nursing home itself was not negligent in causing a nursing home fall, the entity can still be held vicariously liable if any of its staffers were. There is an old Latin legal concept we still use today in Florida known as as respondeat superior, which means “let the master answer.” In other words, if the employee was negligent in the course of carrying out his or her job, the employer can be found liable also. Continue reading

Neglect of an elder dependent is a crime in Florida  – a very serious one if it results in severe injury or death. However, as detailed recently in an enterprise investigation by USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA, the odds of prosecution or even arrest for neglectful nursing home caregivers are slim.  In fact, none of the nursing home deaths state regulators attributed to caregiver neglect resulted in arrest or prosecution. Further, at least one state attorney curiously cited the option of a Florida nursing home wrongful death lawsuit as being the more “suitable” remedy in these cases – even as neglectful caregivers accused of similar acts in other states with comparable criminal laws on the books routinely face felony charges.West Palm Beach nursing home neglect

As long-time West Palm Beach nursing home neglect attorneys helping survivors and family members pursue civil injury and wrongful death claims, the report isn’t especially shocking nor does it directly impact our cases. Lack of accountability, though, could mean residents in Florida nursing homes are at higher risk of neglect and abuse.

Journalists across the state scoured records of all 54 nursing home patient deaths from 2013 through 2017 that were red-flagged by the Florida Department of Children and Families as resulting from caregiver neglect, abuse or failed oversight. Not a single person was prosecuted in any of those deaths. Even when police recommended caregivers face felony charges like criminal neglect and manslaughter, prosecutors declined. Continue reading

Corporations love arbitration agreements. Whether it’s a cell phone contract or an employment agreement, compelling people to give up their right to take any future disputes to court is advantageous to these firms.

But as our nursing home abuse attorneys have come to know, people often don’t realize what they’re signing. Arbitration agreements tend to be buried in a mountain of paperwork. This is especially true in cases where nursing homes require new residents/ representatives to sign such paperwork upon admission. nursing home abuse

Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the validity of nursing home arbitration agreements in the May 2017 case of Kindred Nursing Centers v. Clark, an Obama-era final rule via the Centers for Medicaid Services (CMS) prohibited nursing homes that accepted Medicaid (almost all of them) from forcing residents to sign one.

That is now changing with new directives from the Trump administration, much to the sharp consternation of elder care advocates.  Continue reading

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