Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect
Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect
In many cases, when a resident of a nursing home is injured, the owner and proprietor of the facility may be held liable for any negligence that has occurred resulting in the improper care and injury of its residents. In such cases of negligence, there are a number of items that must be proven for the courts to assign fault. It must be proven that a breach of a duty in caring for a resident has occurred. It must be shown that the resident was injured directly or indirectly as a result of this breach of duty, and that the direct breach of duty caused injury. In the event of a nursing home resident’s death where the death can be directly attributed to negligence, it is not required to prove that the resident would have survived beyond the injury if the act of negligence had not occurred.
There have been an alarming number of reports regarding the frequent mistreatment of the elderly in nursing homes. Recently, the mistreatment of residents in nursing homes has come to the attention of the general public and lawmakers. Among the more infamous report include cases in which elderly nursing home residents have been physically abused, deprived of proper nutrition and dietary requirements and even been neglected when it came a nursing homes obligation to provide for proper medical attention. In the most extreme cases, residents of nursing homes have been divested of their life savings by the nursing home staff, proprietors and even relatives. Mr. Kennedy’s most recent nursing home case he was a part of resulted in multi-million dollar settlement.
