Are Bedsores Considered Neglect?
Yes, and the neglect causes serious injury in a matter of hours. Lack of blood flow quickly kills skin tissue, and the injury quickly spreads. These injuries also form in a matter of hours. Nursing home residents often develop bedsores unless they turn over in bed at least once every three hours. Most residents are too overmedicated or weak to turn themselves over. So, they rely on nursing home employees, who often let them down.
Nursing homes have lots of excuses in these situations. Perhaps the nursing home was short-staffed and unable to do rounds, or perhaps the employee doing the rounds didn’t recognize a developing bedsore. But these excuses don’t change the fact that the nursing home was negligent. In these situations, a Carlsbad personal injury lawyer can obtain substantial compensation in court. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.
Building a Nursing Home Neglect Case
All negligence cases begin with a duty of care. In California, the duty of care varies in premises liability claims, like nursing home negligence claims, depending on the following factors:
- Landowner’s degree of control,
- Likelihood of serious injury,
- Landowners’s knowledge of hazard,
- Property location,
- Landowner’s ability to prevent the injury, and
- Likelihood that someone would come on to the property in the same manner as the victim.
All these factors point toward a high duty of care. Physically feeble people who are prone to serious injury live at nursing homes. Furthermore, bedsores are preventable if someone turns the resident in bed, as outlined above.
If the nursing home employee’s behavior fell below the standard of care, a Carlsbad personal injury lawyer can obtain compensation.
Attorneys usually partner with independent experts to establish the standard of care. Attorneys typically use circumstantial evidence, like patient rounding records and other medical records, to establish a lack of care.
This evidence must be strong enough to prove negligence by a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not).
Building a claim is straightforward, but taking a claim to court is complex. Usually, an out-of-state holding company owns the nursing home in question.
Resolving a Nursing Home Neglect Case
Almost all negligence cases settle out of court. Settling a case doesn’t mean the lawyer gave up. It’s a simple matter of a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If a victim has a good thing, like a favorable settlement, the victim should think twice about giving up that good thing in the hope of getting something better.
Some neglect cases settle almost immediately. In fact, under California law, if major issues in the case are clear, the insurance company must usually make a reasonable settlement offer within thirty days.
Usually, however, the issues aren’t clear, especially in terms of damages. If a doctor aggressively treats a patient, the insurance company often argues that the alarmist doctor overreacted to the victim’s injuries.
So, to jumpstart negotiations, attorneys usually file legal paperwork. This filing usually triggers a mandatory mediation requirement.
The judge appoints a third-party mediation to oversee settlement negotiations. The mediator ensures that both sides negotiate in good faith. Neither side can go through the motions or make take-it-or-leave-it settlement offers.
Mostly because of the good faith negotiation duty, civil mediation is about 90 percent successful. Therefore, the case ends sooner, meaning that victims receive compensation and justice sooner.
Rely on a Dedicated San Diego County Lawyer
Injury victims are entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Carlsbad, contact the Pursley Law Firm. Virtual, home, after hours, and hospital visits are available.
Source:
hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/bedsores
