ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN INJURED BY THE NEGLIGENT ACTS OF THE SKILLED NURSING HOMES AND RESIDENTIAL CARE HOMES


The elderly and disabled in Nursing Homes are among the most vulnerable patients and are often seeking assistance from a legal professional. Because patients are dependent on the SNF staff for their medicine, food, shelter, and assistance with all of their activities of daily living, they are at the most risk of abuse, mistreatment, and neglect.

There are significant remedies that exist to redress the neglect, injuries, and abuse suffered by patients at SNFs. Provisions of the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, Welf & IC 15657-15657.8 in certain conditions permit the survival of personal injury damages, including damages for pain, suffering, and mandate an award of attorney fees for abuse or neglect of an elder involving egregious conduct.

During the first phone call, please be prepared to tell us whether your situation is an emergency ( someone died, someone is seriously injured, has the facility been cited) when did the injury happen, and details and additional information, such as your admission agreements.

There are many possible causes of action that might be included in the complaint against a facility. They include:

  • NEGLIGENCE

  • WILLFUL MISCONDUCT IN VIOLATION OF STATUTORY OR REGULATORY DUTY

  • INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS AND NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS

  • BATTERY

  • ACTUAL FRAUD AND CONSTRUCTIVE FRAUD

  • UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICE AND DECEPTIVE PRACTICE

  • PATIENT'S RIGHTS VIOLATION

  • CRIMINAL ABUSE AND NEGLECT

  • ELDER ABUSE

  • PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE AND MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

A doctor may be liable for "neglect" as defined in Welf & I C §15610.57 of the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (EADACPA) (Welf & I C §§15600– 15766). See Mack v Soung (2000) 80 CA4th 966 (allegations that doctor ignored and then concealed the patient's serious bedsore, opposed her hospitalization, and withdrew as her physician when she was in critical need of care).

A doctor is liable for injury resulting from abandonment, neglect, or other failures to attend throughout the patient's illness or disability as long as medical attention is needed, unless the relationship was ended earlier by mutual consent, by the dismissal of the doctor, or by the doctor's withdrawal after giving reasonable notice to the patient

Under Health & S C §120455, a doctor is not liable, absent willful misconduct or gross negligence, for the consequences of administering an immunization required by state law.

Doctors' medical malpractice insurers may exclude from coverage liability for administering a drug that has not been approved by the United States Food & Drug Administration

A doctor who has prescribed or administered a drug or device, and who then learns that the item is dangerous, may be liable for injuries resulting from a failure to warn the patient of the danger. On the other hand, a doctor who prescribes a drug does not thereby become strictly liable as a product distributor for defects in the drug or for untoward side effects.

A doctor is liable for a patient's injury that results from a course of treatment or procedure if The doctor failed to make a reasonable disclosure to the patient (or to the legal guardian or closest available relative of a minor or incompetent patient) of the choices of available treatment and the potential dangers inherent in each; and A prudent person in the patient's position who had been adequately informed of all significant perils would not then have consented to the treatment.

The doctor's duty to disclose does not ordinarily need to be established by expert medical testimony of a medical community standard

Where the gravamen of the complaint is that defendant's acts constituted actual or constructive fraud, the applicable statute of limitations is the CCP § 338(d) 3-year limitations period.

Disability discrimination claims based on requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (42 USC § 18116(a)) are subject to the 4-year, catch-all limitations statute (28 USC § 1658(a)). [Vega-Ruiz v. Northwell Health (2nd Cir. 2021) 992 F3d 61, 66]