Articles Posted in nursing home negligence

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Workers at state-run nursing homes face a higher risk of on-the-job injuries than construction workers or those in manufacturing.

That’s based on the latest figures from the annual report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on workplace illnesses and injuries. There were approximately 2.9 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses across the private sector last year and another 753,000 in the public sector, according to the Labor Department. On the whole, that works out to three injuries per 100 full-time workers in the private industry and 5.1 injuries per 100 full-time workers in state and local government. Meanwhile, when it comes to nursing home employees, those who work at state-run nursing homes and residential care facilities are injured at a rate of 12 per 100 full-time workers. This represents more than 13,700 cases of recorded injury or illness suffered by nursing home employees last year. That’s even more than local police, who suffered an injury rate of 11.3 per 100 workers. The Bureau of Labor pointed out also that these figures are actually low because these incidents are often unreported.

Work-related injuries among nursing home workers can have a direct impact on the quality of care that patients receive. First of all, a facility that is well-run prioritizes the safety of all who are present – including the employees, who are critical to the process. A facility that does not have or does not enforce worker safety guidelines is not likely to do so when it comes to patient safety either. Continue reading →

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A woman in Oregon has filed a $2.7 million lawsuit against a nursing home, as well the physical therapy and hospice providers who were on contract with the facility, for alleged negligence resulting in the death of her elderly mother and stepfather. 

According to The Register-Guard, the woman alleges in her wrongful death lawsuit that administrators and therapists at the facility failed to meet the needs of her parents, ages 91 and 92, and that this failure resulted in their premature deaths, just weeks apart from one another.

Plaintiff’s stepfather was 92 when he died in late 2014, and her mother was 91 when she died just a few weeks later. Plaintiff is the representative for the separate estates of both parents, who had each previously been diagnosed with dementia and were deemed a serious fall risk. Even though the nursing home had this knowledge, plaintiff asserts, staffers failed to prevent them from falling numerous times, leading to serious injuries and the acceleration of their deaths.  Continue reading →

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A national nursing home chain with dozens of locations in Florida (including in Orlando) has agreed to pay $145 million to resolve a government lawsuit alleging the company violated the federal False Claims Act by intentionally causing its facilities to submit claims to Medicare and Tricare for rehab services that were not:

  • Reasonable;
  • Skilled;
  • Necessary. 

The chain, Life Care Centers of America, Inc. is based in Tennessee and owns/ operates more than 220 nursing homes across the U.S. Its Florida facilities are listed here. Cases like this matter to patients not just because they involve defrauding taxpayers of federal money, but because vulnerable, elderly residents often end up receiving therapy they do not need and that, in some cases, is harmful.

This $145 million settlement is the largest the U.S. Department of Justice has ever made with a skilled nursing home facility, according to a recent press releaseContinue reading →

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The federal government has issued a new rule that guarantees patients and their families the right to sue nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. This is huge for victims of abuse, neglect and negligence by these facilities, which have increasingly forced patients to sign mandatory arbitration agreements upon admission.

These contracts strip patients and/ or their legal representatives of the right to have their injury and wrongful death claims heard by a judge and jury. Instead, they are forced to have the dispute weighed via arbitration, which is handled either by a single individual or a panel. It’s done in secret. The results often are not favorable to plaintiffs. Even when damages are awarded, the amounts are often far less than what plaintiffs might expect at trial or even in a settlement, given that nursing homes must account for public scrutiny of their actions (or inaction) and level of care and competence.

The new rule, handed down by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) prohibits this so-called binding arbitration clause in nursing home contracts for any facility that receives money from Medicaid or Medicare. That is pretty much all of them.  Continue reading →

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Florida courts have been increasingly allowing nursing home negligence lawsuits to go to trial, despite the existence of nursing home arbitration agreements. Defendant nursing homes are looking to compel plaintiffs to resolve their dispute via arbitration, where outcomes are private and tend to favor the facility.

The grounds on which a court may find an agreement unenforceable usually involve whether the agreement is “unconscionable.” That means the contract is so one-sided, it’s unfair to one party and violates public policy. It’s the kind of contract that leaves one party with no real, meaningful choice and typically arises due to the power imbalance between the two parties. So many of these nursing home arbitration agreements are signed by vulnerable patients or their loved ones upon admission – sometimes as a condition to admission. A contract can be unconscionable if there is:

  • Undue influence;
  • Duress;
  • Unequal bargaining power;
  • Unfair surprise.

Such an agreement may also be unenforceable if the person who signed it did not have the capacity or authority to do so. Elderly adults with dementia may not have the mental capacity to enter into legal agreements, but if their relatives are not expressly designated as their legal representative, they may not be able to legally sign on their loved one’s behalf.  Continue reading →

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The corporate structure of many for-profit nursing homes is specifically designed to make it difficult to impose liability when there is a dispute over the quality of care. Our nursing home abuse lawyers in Florida know it’s not unusual for a single nursing home to be tied to nearly half a dozen different businesses connected by a tangle of contract agreements. It takes a skilled litigator to sort through that kind of mess in order to attain accountability for poor care. 

The recent case of Griffith v. SSC Pueblo Belmont Operating Co. is a prime example of how these corporate structures can complicate court cases.

According to court records, this matter out of Colorado involved a handful of separate corporations with varying levels of involvement in day-to-day operations of the facility. Some of those entities existed out-of-state, and technically did not operate in Colorado or have any of their own business contacts in that state. That made the issue of jurisdiction for Colorado state courts a very tricky matter.  Continue reading →

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The Florida Supreme Court has issued an opinion in a nursing home negligence lawsuit, tossing an arbitration agreement and the reasoning by the 3rd DCA that it was enforceable because the son signed on behalf of his father who lacked mental capacity. The court in Mendez v. Hampton Court Nursing Ctr. said the father’s mental capacity here did not matter because it didn’t change the son’s lack of legal standing to sign on his father’s behalf.

As we’ve seen in so many of these cases, the son signed a nursing home admission agreement – which included an arbitration provision – for his father when he was first admitted to the Miami-area facility back in 2009. But the son didn’t have legal power of attorney. The father likely couldn’t have legally signed that paperwork either because he lacked the mental capacity to do so, but that’s beside the point here. Later when a dispute arose and plaintiff alleged his father’s care had been negligent, the nursing home sought to enforce that arbitration agreement.

It was argued by defendant nursing home that the father’s lack of mental capacity meant the son was acting as his father’s representative. The trial court agreed with the nursing home and so too did the Third District Court of Appeals. But the state supreme court, in a 5-2 decision, reversed. The father’s mental state didn’t change the son’s legal power or somehow make the contract valid. Had the nursing home wanted to ensure the correct party was signing the document, they could have taken the matter to court, asked for the father to be declared mentally incompetent, had the court establish a legal representative and then asked that person to sign. Continue reading →

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Nursing home abuse and neglect lawsuits were always a challenge, for a myriad of reasons. But increasingly, more plaintiffs are running up against a formidable test: Arbitration. 

Arbitration agreements are thrust in front of patients and their families, often while they are in a state of emotional and physical turmoil – during the nursing home admission process. Buried in a stack of forms, the arbitration agreement compels the person to sign away their right to have disputes handled in a court of law. Instead, by signing their name at the bottom of the fine print, they agree instead to have such claims heard by a paid arbitrator, in private, behind closed doors. The arbitrator isn’t bound by the law. There is no jury. The arbitration process isn’t public. The arbitrator has an interest in keeping the nursing home happy, therefore preserving the lucrative contracts that keep them employed. These agreements are not in the best interests of residents and their loved ones.

As a recent article by ThinkProgress.org recently explained, these arbitration agreements are increasingly becoming the status quo. The good news is that advocates and elected officials are starting to take notice. However, as of right now, the process is still largely going unchecked, leaving many abused, mistreated and neglected nursing home residents fighting an uphill battle for justice.  Continue reading →

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Federal authorities are suing a nursing home system alleging the company committed fraud by filing false claims to both Medicare and the state-based TennCare (in Tennessee) on behalf of senior residents. Even as these facilities were being compensated for a litany of specialized services, they were not extending even the most basic level of care to residents, authorities say. 

The Tennessean reports residents suffered a host of injuries, ailments and injustices, including:

  • Pressure ulcers (also known as bed sores)
  • Falls
  • Dehydration
  • Malnutrition
  • Improper feeding

The lawsuit alleges these incidents were systemic and occurred in at least six different facilities throughout Tennessee, in Murfreesboro, Nashville, Shelbyville, Madison, Manchester and Memphis.  Continue reading →

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A Florida nursing home has lost its bid to compel arbitration in the case of a woman who alleges her husband suffered injury as a result of nursing home negligence while a patient there. Although the trial court had ruled the case should go to arbitration, Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed, finding the claims raised by the estate of the decedent resident were not within the scope of the arbitration agreement. The reason? It had been signed with a different company entirely. 

That’s right. Defendant was attempting to use the arbitration agreement decedent had signed with his assisted living facility provider to require the complainant to resolve her allegation of negligence against the nursing home before an arbitrator rather than a court. The primary reason the trial court had Ok’d this was because the nursing home and the assisted living facility were owned by the same company. Further, there was a provision in the assisted living facility arbitration agreement in which it was stated that the agreement would remain in place, regardless of whether the patient was transferred to and from the facility. Upon readmission, that agreement would still remain in effect. It was to be understood the arbitration agreement was applicable to all future admissions.

Trial court had relied on this provision in granting defense motion to compel arbitration. However, the 2nd DCA reviewing Olson v. Florida Living Options reversed.  Continue reading →

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