Jury Gives $4,000,000 In Punitive Damages Against Nursing Home For Substandard Care Of 71 Year Old Alzheimer’s Female
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-12-12 22:34:47 | Word Count: 472
Lawyers who deal with medical malpractice lawsuits realize that those concerning nursing homes frequently involve terrible injuries following an absolute disregard for the care of the elderly and those who are otherwise defenseless and highly vulnerable to abuse and neglect. These cases many times further deal with strong emotional issues as family members do not just feel a considerable amount of pain for how their loved ones have been dealt with but additionally may also blame themselves for not recognizing the neglect and abuse earlier.
Consider the reported case of a 79 year old woman who had been a resident of a nursing home for 5 years. She was disabled and was not able to walk nor talk. Her medical history included Alzheimer's, diabetes and bedsores. During that time she was subjected to malnutrition and the development of bedsores as she was left to lie on her bed which was drenched with her own feces and urine.
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Her family retained an attorney. With the attorney's help the family pursued a lawsuit naming the nursing home, the management companies, the nursing home owner, and both current and former administrators of the nursing home as defendants. As frequently occurs in these cases, the defendants suggested that the woman had been well cared for and had actually gotten better in the time she was in the nursing home.
The lawyer who pursued this case took it to trial. The jury found that the defendants had not adequately cared for the woman. Because of this, the jury gave the family $3,000,000. This amount included $380,000 for medical care expenses. The remaining $2,620,000 was for the pain and suffering of the woman. Given the appalling nature of the care given to this elderly disabled patient by the nursing home the jury further awarded $4 million in punitive damages. The full award came to $7 million.
Nursing homes in which patients are neglected and abused often do their best to hide this from family members. For example, they might fail to tell family members that the patient has developed significant and sometimes even life threatening pressure ulcers. In the event the patient cannot communicate as was the situation with the woman in the matter examined above family members might not find out about the neglect and abuse for a very long time. By the point at which family members discover them the bedsores are typically very advanced.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting pressure ulcer cases. You can learn more about nursing home neglect and medical negligence cases visit the website
