Nursing Home Abuse - Overview
A nursing home can be held liable for negligence if the injured party can prove: 1) that the nursing home's owner or employees breached a duty of care owed to the injured person; 2) that the person's injury was caused by this breach; and, 3) that the nursing home owner's or employee's conduct caused the injury. While these elements apply equally to negligence actions brought by nursing home visitors and residents alike, the following discussion focuses specifically on issues that arise in negligence actions brought by residents.
Proving Duty and Breach of Duty: A plaintiff suing a nursing home may need to offer expert medical testimony about what is or is not a proper practice, treatment or procedure in a given situation, unless the lack of care or skill by the nursing home is so apparent that the average person would comprehend it based on his or her common knowledge and experience. For instance, if a nursing home administrator is alleged to have failed to exercise care with respect to maintaining the nursing home facility, that issue will likely not require expert testimony, whereas a nurse's treatment of a patient's condition might.
Statutory Standard of Care: Many states have enacted statutes or regulations that establish certain minimum standards of care for private nursing homes. Even if a nursing home can show it complied with minimum licensing standards, however, it may still be liable for a resident's injuries. For these reasons, it is important to have an attorney research the applicable standard of care, licensing requirements, and other regulations in your area.
Causation:
An issue that comes up frequently in nursing home litigation is whether the resident's injury was inevitable due to his or her preexisting poor health, medical complications, mental condition, or advanced age. Defendants often argue that a resident's preexisting health condition, and not any negligence on the part of the nursing home, was the true cause of an injury alleged in a lawsuit. But this should not deter a resident who believes a nursing home caused his or her injury; there is a well-established rule of law that a defendant (such as a nursing home) takes its victim as it finds him/her, preexisting conditions and all. Thus, the fact that a resident's injury may have been made worse, or harder to treat, because of a preexisting physical or mental condition does not relieve the defendant of liability.
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