A lot of the incidents that attorneys at Nursing Home Law News helps within nursing homes in Florida and in many other states are completely preventable.
They come about through neglect, mismanagement, or some other avoidable error. Falls are a great example of an accident like that. They are very common and totally needless. However, that does not mean they are slight or inconsequential.
When Florida nursing home residents fall out of bed or anywhere else, they are quite often seriously injured and left with outstanding and sizeable bills-medical and others.
To give you a better glimpse into Florida nursing home lawsuits, we have summarized some cases below for your reading. They mostly focus on falls. I
f you have been involved in an incident like this, call our offices to see how we can help. You deserve recovery!
Florida nursing home fall case.
This dispute grew out of proportion to the original incident because of some medical complications that developed for the man. He was coming out of the bath and getting ready for the day when he slipped on some water that was on the floor. He fell down and injured himself.
Thankfully, nursing home assistants were already on their way over to help him when they found him lying on the floor in pain. It was fortunate because he would have had no way of alerting them had they not showed up.
Once they got there, they helped him up and then called emergency services so that he could receive immediate medical attention. At the doctor’s office, he was given x-ray examinations and brain diagnostic procedures in addition to other services.
They discovered that while he did not suffer any traumatic brain injuries his condition was still serious enough that they wanted him to stay for further review. After several weeks, he was discharged from that premises and admitted to a different long-term care facility. It was there that he and his healthcare providers found out the fall created a disability in his shoulder. His range and movement were severely limited.
Not long after this discovery, he brought a Florida nursing home lawsuit against the original institution. He claimed that it took care of him negligently and that deficient service was the legal cause of his injuries and consequent damages.
For instance, he claimed that the bathroom should have had rails to hold onto, buttons on the floor to alert staff to accidents, and employees onsite to prevent him from slipping.
The defendant pointed the finger back at him and charged him with recklessness and assumption of risk. Yet, as the months wore on, these proved to be more dodges than actual hits on the man’s main case and the home realized it had to settle.
They offered him close to his demand, about seventy percent to be precise, and he accepted.
Florida nursing home fall case.
This nursing home lawsuit was brought by a sixty-four-year-old woman. She had not been living at facility long before these events occurred which made the litigation a lot more contentions.
How she fell was a bit hard to discern from the documents filed in court but we can gather that it was in her room while she was preparing for the day. From the complaint, she contends that she asked for assistance but none came and so she proceeded prior to falling and getting hurt.
It was here that the nursing home pounced. It replied that she should have waited a bit longer and that any damages that resulted from that hastiness were her responsibility and not theirs. Also, they thought that she was exaggerating the true cost of her damages. She broke a rib and sprained her wrist and they could not deny this.
What they did fight back on was her contention that these produced some long-term pain or handicap. They argued that these claims were speculative at best in their opinion. The nursing home’s strong defenses perhaps explain why their eventual compromise fell pretty far from the average Florida nursing home settlement.
She received $90,000 in an agreement to end the matter.
Florida nursing home fall case.
This lawsuit was filed after an elderly man fell out of his chair and was critically injured. Staff were not long in responding to the situation but that nonetheless could not prevent actual harm. Physicians ascertained that he concussed himself and broke his harm.
Due to his old age and infirmity, both of these injuries would have significant deleterious effects upon his health for the foreseeable future. There were a couple of things that were striking about this incident. First, it happened right out in the open in a community living room.
He was interacting with other residents and staff. Second, despite being a high risk for falls as identified by the facility itself, he was sitting at the table in the chair without any restraints or devices to prevent him from falling. Third, other residents had fallen over in a similar manner at this nursing home in the past.
All of these points put the man’s lawsuit on strong footing when he eventually filed it in Florida court. He asked for compensation for damages related to his costs, pain, and suffering. Almost from the get-go, the defendant nursing home put its strategy on reducing the amount he could receive versus whether he could recover at all.
When this tactic was realized and put in motion, it made trial unlikely and settlement inevitable. In fact, that is exactly what happened.
A little over one year from the incident date, the plaintiff recovered just north of $300,000 for his tangible and intangible injuries as well as his costs and expenses.
Florida nursing home fall case.
After this Florida resident’s third fall, she arranged with counsel to bring an action against the facility where the events occurred. The combined effect of the accidents was substantial: broken bones; pain; outstanding medical bills; and trauma. She put the total balance of the affair on the shoulders of the nursing home.
She argued in a complaint filed in court that it was responsible for all of it because of its negligence supervision and service. In particular, her suit made the points that its staff failed to properly secure while she laid in bed, assist her as she moved about the premises, or help her when she used the facilities.
Due to these errors, she fell down, suffered injuries, and incurred damages.
The nursing home was nonplussed. At first, it denied that all of these fall accidents could have occurred at least as she described them. Then, it argued that they could not have had the combined effects at least as she suggested.
This latter strategy seemed to be its strongest and what it put most of its emphasis on in discovery and motion arguments. In the end though, this did not warrant an argument in court and both sides settled for the sum reported above according to the following damages:
Florida nursing home fall case.
The Floridian who brought this case had a past history of falls but that predisposition did not really provoke this instance. He was walking on the perimeter of the home grounds and tripped over a curbside object. The exact trigger for his descent was not determined other than a typical railing. He fractured a bone in his arm and sprained his ankle.
The subsequent lawsuit was more about the precautions and signs that the nursing home did not employ more so than the past history of falls that he had experienced. This case resembled a typical slip and fall dispute rather than an average Florida nursing home lawsuit.
The nursing home’s main counterpunch was contributory negligence and it was a good one because they were able to show that he regularly ignored their advice and caution. Yet, it still carried a heavy responsibility as a caretaker and the circumstances of his fall largely were the result of carelessness on its part. Therefore, it was convinced to settle but much closer to its original offer than his original demand.
He received a $50,000 settlement.
$425,000 NURSING HOME SETTLEMENT:
Florida nursing home fall case.
This dispute was already at a critical state prior to the fall accident that precipitated the cause of action. The victim was a female nursing home resident. She was in her late sixties and was battling a number of illnesses.
One of the conditions, and court documents do not spell out exactly, prompted nursing home management to have her transferred to the care of her physicians for a temporary amount of time. During this transit, she was dropped and fell from the bed that she was being moved on to the doctor’s room. The trauma and force of the accident caused her great distress.
She developed chest pain that her doctors later discerned was a minor heart attack. Also, she sustained other bodily injuries and complications as a result of the event. The whole affair required a lot of medical attention, rehabilitation, and treatment.
In order to maximize the efficiency of this regimen, she moved out of the nursing home into a more advanced care facility. After she completed that move, she brought a lawsuit against the nursing home. The basis of the claim was in negligence.
Her lawyers pointed to a number of faults that the defendant home committed which in their opinion led to the fall and her damages. They sought reimbursement for her medical and related expenses as well as compensation for the pain, suffering, and decreased quality of life that the incident caused her. The main thrust of the case was that the home’s negligence led to the heart attack which severely altered her life and added innumerably to her healthcare burden going forward from the fall.
The defendant denied this conclusion and spent the better part of a year attempting to prove that it would have happened anyways. Yet, stuck with no answer to the errors in care that the plaintiff pointed out, it chose to settle rather than blame the victim in court and she recovered the sum listed above.
Florida nursing home fall case.
This lawsuit was about much more than falls. It was about the core responsibility that nursing homes owe to residents and the debt that they should repay when they fail to meet that responsibility.
Representatives of the estate of a man sued a nursing home after he passed away in its care. They alleged that it completely failed him in care, supervision, and service and that this total breakdown led to falls, malnutrition, health complications, and even death.
They sought compensation for the pain he experienced prior to dying, costs that the death created, and loss that his absence put on his surviving family members. Initially, the defendant tried to fight back on each charge but it soon decided that the sum of errors was too much for it to overcome especially in front of a sympathetic jury.
Therefore, it was amenable to settle and both sides agreed on a number roughly one and a half years after his passing: $620,000.
Here is why that number might not be as high as you would think for a wrongful death nursing home lawsuit in Florida:
Whether you or a loved one was involved in a fall accident in a Florida nursing home, remember these takeaways so that you understand the main points of a potential lawsuit:
Nursing Home Law News can help you if your family member was injured in a Florida nursing home. We have worked with many accident victims and have a wide range of experience in different types of incidents including falls.
Call our offices and we can set up a consultation to show you how you can recover under the laws of Florida. Then, let us work with you to achieve the recovery you deserve at no upfront cost. Call us today! We can begin immediately.
If you would like to learn more about nursing home cases in Florida, please read the following pages:
If you are looking for information on the laws and regulations that apply to Florida nursing homes, look here.
For information on nursing homes in specific cities and attorneys who have experience prosecuting cases please refer to the pages below.
Attorney Blair N. Mendes, Esq.
Licensed in Florida
Chicago Nursing Home Injury Attorney Nursing Home Law Center LLC Home