The chances of winning a lawsuit against a nursing home depend on several factors, such as the strength of available evidence, the severity of injuries, the type of harm your loved one suffered, and the way the case is resolved.
Sweet James provides personalized service focused on each client and family. Our nursing home abuse lawyers can evaluate records, deadlines, and legal options to help you protect your loved one’s health and rights.
Key Evidence That May Increase the Likelihood of Success in a Nursing Home Abuse Lawsuit
Documentation is key in a nursing home abuse lawsuit. The odds of securing compensation increase if the evidence is strong. For example, your lawyer from Sweet James will work to obtain:
- Documentation of serious events: Medical records documenting falls, bruises, or unexplained injuries can go a long way toward securing compensation.
- Evidence of standard-of-care violations: Your lawyer can compare the staffing schedule against the care plan for that same week. If nobody was on duty when your loved one was injured, that’s evidence of neglect.
- Eyewitness statements: If multiple sources tell the same story without comparing notes with each other, that can be seen as strong evidence of abuse or neglect.
- Expert testimony: Medical experts may be needed to establish that the nursing home failed to meet the standard of care and that this failure caused your loved one’s injury.
No single fact guarantees a win. A strong claim usually comes from several sources that tell the same story and hold up against the defenses a facility is likely to raise.
The Severity of Injuries May Determine the Success of Your Nursing Home Claim
Minor injuries may occur without any form of wrongdoing on the part of the nursing home. Sometimes, bumps and bruises are just part of aging or unavoidable accidents. However, if your loved one experienced serious harm, it may serve as strong evidence that the care facility breached the duty of care it held toward them.
Serious injuries that occur in a nursing home due to abuse or neglect may include:
- Broken bones: While some falls that cause broken bones are unavoidable, lack of supervision, poor transfer practices, or ignored fall precautions may also lead to fractures.
- Traumatic brain injuries or spinal cord injuries: These can also be caused by falls due to lack of supervision or serious cases of physical abuse.
- Bedsores: Pressure ulcers are often avoidable if bedridden residents are moved frequently enough.
- Sepsis: Delayed recognition or treatment may allow a localized infection to become life-threatening.
- Dehydration or malnutrition: Weight records, intake charts, and laboratory results may reveal a sustained problem.
- Wrongful death: A family may seek damages when neglect or abuse is legally connected to a resident’s death.
In addition to affecting the odds of success with your claim, serious injuries can also greatly affect the value of the claim. Injuries requiring long-term care generally qualify for a significantly higher financial recovery than minor harm.
Building a Strong Evidence File
A nurse may note that a wound looked worse during the night shift. Another entry may record its size before the resident went to the hospital. The staffing schedule then shows who was working and whether anyone was available to respond.
Your lawyer may begin with the record created closest to the injury. From there, they will look backward to see what the facility knew and what care was actually provided.
- The hospital chart may show when the injury was first diagnosed and how serious it was.
- A nurse’s note or medication log can help explain what happened during a particular shift.
- Original photographs may capture a wound, bruise, unsafe room, or broken equipment.
- Staffing records can show whether enough employees were available when the problem occurred.
Sweet James can request what’s relevant, bring in qualified experts, and check all of it against the facility’s version of events.
Calculating the Value of Your Economic and Non-Economic Damages
A fall that breaks a resident’s hip may lead to a hospital stay, months of rehabilitation, and a move to a facility offering better care. Those costs are simple to count. However, putting a value on the pain, lost mobility, or time the family lost with the resident is harder and depends on state law.
The economic and non-economic damages your loved one may be entitled to include:
- Current and future medical expenses
- Rehabilitation
- Relocation costs
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of life
Sweet James uses data from thousands of injury cases to help evaluate documented losses while accounting for the facts that make each case different.
Any settlement should be evaluated after liens, case costs, legal fees, and future needs are considered.
A Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Can Help Your Loved One Today
“What are the chances of winning a lawsuit against a nursing home?” may be the wrong question to start with. A family deciding whether to move forward needs to understand the situation surrounding their unique circumstances, and that can only be evaluated during a consultation with a qualified legal professional.
Our legal team can handle paperwork and insurer communication while investigating abuse, neglect, and damages. Contact Sweet James for a free, confidential case review today.
