Was Your Loved One Hurt in a Nursing Home? You May Have a Case.

Often, yes — particularly if it progressed to Stage 3 or Stage 4, became infected, or led to hospitalization. Pressure ulcers are considered largely preventable with proper repositioning, nutrition, hydration, and skin assessment. Federal nursing home regulations specifically require facilities to prevent pressure ulcers in residents who are admitted without them, and to provide treatment that promotes healing in residents who have them. When a Stage 3 or 4 bedsore develops or worsens under a facility’s care, that is strong evidence of a failure to meet the standard of care. The strongest cases involve bedsores that led to infection, sepsis, surgery, amputation, or a significant decline in your loved one’s overall condition.

It can be, and these are cases our attorneys take seriously. A fall does not have to cause death on the spot to support a wrongful death claim. If your loved one fell in the facility — especially unwitnessed, from a bed, from a wheelchair, in a bathroom, or after the facility had identified them as a fall risk — and died within the following weeks or months from complications (a broken hip, hip surgery, a head injury, pneumonia after being bedridden), there may be a clear causal link. Most states allow the family to pursue a wrongful death claim in these circumstances. The key questions are whether the facility knew your loved one was a fall risk, whether they had proper safeguards in place, and what they did — or didn’t do — when the fall happened.

Yes. Sepsis in a nursing home almost always traces back to an underlying infection — a urinary tract infection (UTI), pneumonia, a wound or pressure ulcer, MRSA, or C. diff — that should have been identified, treated, or escalated to a hospital sooner than it was. Courts have recognized claims against facilities for failure to monitor, failure to diagnose, failure to treat, and failure to transfer to a higher level of care. If your loved one died of sepsis in a nursing home, or survived sepsis with significant lasting harm, you likely have a case worth reviewing.

That is the standard defense, and it is often wrong. Many of the conditions facilities blame on age or pre-existing illness — bedsores, infections, falls, dehydration, malnutrition, rapid decline — are exactly the things they are paid and legally required to prevent and manage. Your loved one’s age and medical history do not absolve the facility of the duty to provide reasonable care. A nursing home neglect attorney will pull the records and the standard of care, not just take the facility’s word for it.

Every state has strict deadlines (statutes of limitation) that vary based on the type of claim — personal injury, wrongful death, or claims involving medical malpractice — and can be as short as one to two years from the date of injury or death. Some claims may be subject to even shorter notice requirements. Because the deadlines are unforgiving and the relevant medical records and staffing data can disappear over time, do not wait to get a case review. The sooner an attorney can preserve evidence, the stronger the case will be.

Nothing upfront. These cases are handled on contingency — you pay no attorney fees unless and until there is a recovery. The initial case review is always free, confidential, and comes with no obligation. If we don’t take the case, you owe nothing.

Recoveries in nursing home cases vary widely depending on the facts, the severity of the harm, the strength of the records, and whether the case involves a wrongful death. Categories of damages typically include medical and hospitalization costs, pain and suffering, the full value of the life lost in wrongful death cases, and, in some cases, punitive damages where the facility’s conduct was particularly egregious. A free case review is the right way to get a realistic read on what your specific situation may be worth.