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Important Reasons to Bring a Case against Abusive Nursing Homes

In the nearly thirty years I have worked as a personal injury lawyer, the most horrible stories I heard are the ones involving Nursing Home Abuse. When I was in high school more than thirty years ago we watched a movie showing patients being abused in nursing homes. The movie plays over in my head like I watched it yesterday. It is a strong reason why I fight to help these victims of nursing home abuse and I act in a role to police the nursing homes. It turns my stomach when I listen to the stories told to me by loved ones about their family members that have been abused and suffered bedsores, falls, death and abuse by careless nurses and nursing home owners trying to squeeze every dollar into profit without caring about the patients. We rely on nursing homes to care for the elderly and infirm and expect nurses to live up to the oath they take to provide proper care and careful medical help to those unable to care for themselves.

Good reasons exist to hire an experienced Henderson Nursing Home Abuse personal injury lawyer and to make a claim against careless Nursing Homes. One reason is to get an award of money from the Nursing Home that abused a family member. Another reason is to send a clear signal to the Abusive Henderson Nursing Home that negligence and Nursing Care abuse that injures our family members and loved ones will not be tolerated. I ask you to stand up for your elderly or infirm family member and protect their rights against careless and negligent nursing home care that injured them. The only way to prevent further Nursing Home Abuse from causing more injuries to other patients is to bring a claim against a negligent Henderson Nursing Home and hit them where it pains them: In their bank account.

I suggest you make the claim tell allow our Henderson personal injury law office to force the nursing home and the insurance company that covers them to pay out money. This will cause the Nursing Home owners to pressure the nurses on their staff to give the careful standard of nursing care to stop personal injury from happening to our loved ones. After my law office forces the insurance company to pay out many thousands, hundreds of thousands or potentially in excess of one million dollars to your family member who suffered a personal injury, they will demand the nursing home management prove they improved their nursing home policies or the insurance underwriting department will refuse to renew their insurance coverage. They will not permit a careless nurse to remain or for careless nursing home abuse policies such as having too few nurses per patient to continue. Further adding to the negligent nursing home owner's attention is that their insurance rates for the nursing home policy will be raised after a nursing home neglect and abuse claim is paid. This will result in the nursing home management demanding the nursing staff be more careful and cause the nursing home owners to improve the number of nurses per patient and other polices.

Hire a Henderson Personal injury lawyer with Nursing Home Neglect Case Experience

It is important to retain a Henderson personal injury lawyer with experience handling Nursing Home Abuse and neglect claims. Nursing Home Abuse and neglect cases are handled in a similar manner to Medical Malpractice claims. It is of utmost importance to understand there is a statute of limitation which is a limitation on the time period to file a lawsuit in Clark County District Court for a Henderson Nursing Home abuse and neglect case. The limitation period is One Year. Sometimes the Judge will allow and extension for very limited reasons up to a few additional years under Nevada Nursing Home Negligence law. The judge would review a valid legal excuse as to why the abuse and neglect was not known, or would want to see facts showing the negligent nursing home or negligent nurse hid information to prevent a claim being made against them for the negligent nursing home abuse. It is not a simple task to convince the highest level District Court Judge to accept an argument extending the one year statute of limitations. The one year statute of limitation is a bar date which means the case has to be settled or the case must be filed in court within one year of the negligent nursing home conduct that caused the personal injury. If you have not settled prior to the one year, or if the Henderson personal injury lawyer attempts to bring the lawsuit after one year, the Henderson Nursing Home neglect and Abuse Defense lawyer will present the judge with a written document raising an "affirmative defense" of statute of limitation and request the judge throw your injured family members case out of court. In most instances the judge's hands will be tied and the case will be dismissed.

Critical Nurse Expert Affidavit Requirement of Nevada Law

The proper handling of your nursing home neglect and abuse case requires the Henderson personal injury lawyer to review the medical chart including nurse's notes, doctor's orders, consultation notes, prescription charts, and the complete chart of the nursing home. (It is helpful to speed up your case review to get a complete copy of the nursing home medical chart to present to us-if you can do that with ease-otherwise we will get the records). The nursing home medical chart needs to be studied by a nurse expert to determine whether the information in the chart (and most importantly the information the negligent nurse and staff intentionally did not write down) proves the nursing care falls below the reasonable standard of care of the Henderson nursing home community. If a nurse who studies the medical chart is of the opinion that there was negligent and abusive nursing care which directly resulted in an injury to you or your family member, the nurse expert will sign an affidavit explaining the facts and indicate there was negligence and abuse at the nursing home which fell below the Henderson nursing home reasonable care requirement of Nevada negligence nursing home law. Of critical importance is that the affidavit in which the nurse expert swears their was abuse at the Henderson Nursing Home must be attached to the lawsuit we file in the Clark County District Court or the Judge will have no alternative but to throw out the negligent Henderson Nursing Home Abuse case. Following the dismissal of your case, if one year has passed under the statute of limitation (or the extended time period if that applies), the Henderson Personal injury lawyer will be prevented from filing the lawsuit in court again.

Typical Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse Stories

Some Henderson nursing home abuse and neglect stories which result in claims that we look for are the ones where negligent nursing home care causes your family member to develop bed sores. There are four bed sore stages. Nurses are required to move a patient that is unable to shift him or herself voluntarily every couple of hours to stop a pressure sore also known as bed sore from developing. A Stage One bed sore occurs when the skin starts to get a bruise and has a red color. The most pain to the patient is from a stage four bedsore. In the stage four bedsores the wound may go down to the patient's bone. After bedsores develop the healing process can be difficult and is very painful. The typical medical care requires the physician to provide a repeatedly painful debridement requiring cutting of dead tissue to try and heal the bedsore.

Other Abusive Nursing Home stories to be aware of include those where the patient has fallen. If the patient had difficulty walking they must be carefully helped out of their bed or wheelchair. Often I had cases where the patient fell being assisted to the toilet or into or out of wheelchairs and beds resulting in severe personal injury such as broken hips. These patients need to have support by the nursing staff to prevent falls. We have had patients fall out of bed because bed rails were not in place. When elderly and infirm or severely disabled people fall we often find they broke a hip or other bone. If a patient has fallen multiple times that is a clear signal there is Negligent and abusive Nursing Care. We worked on cases where the Nurses dropped the patient when shifting them from their bed to their wheel chair and from one bed to another bed.

Pay attention for the stories where a patient chokes to death. Sometimes there is Nursing home negligence when the nursing home knew the patient had swallowing difficulties and provided food that was not easily swallowed. We watch for situations where the patient was severely dehydrated or starving from malnutrition. We have had these exact cases before

Things You Can Do To Help Prevent Injury to Your Family Member

Visiting your family member as often as you can alerts the Nursing Home managers and nurses that you are paying attention to the well being of your loved one.

A nursing home investigator will look into a Henderson Nursing Home negligence case where there was a bad injury or a patient died due to neglect and abuse. The health department which gives the license to the Henderson Nursing Homes will assign a case worker who will write a report and document any abuse found by the negligent Henderson Nursing Home.

Our personal injury lawyers are experienced at working on cases against Negligent Henderson Nursing Homes that are Abuse their patients. A personal injury lawyer from our law office will discuss the facts of your case. We are paid attorney fees only when we win money for you or your family member's personal injuries resulting from the Negligent Henderson Nursing Home. Photos of the personal injury and of any bed sores will help us to present your case. (A photo is worth a thousand or several thousand words)

The Personal injury lawyers at my office, Jack Bernstein and Associates known also as Bernstein and Poisson can only represent your Henderson Nursing Home Negligence and abuse case, if we have our contract signed as required by the Nevada Supreme Court. If the injured patient has their faculties, they sign the Nevada bar's contract which authorizes our personal injury law office to work on the case. If the patient is not able to sign the contract, then whoever has the power of attorney can hire the Henderson personal injury lawyer and sign the contract. If no one has a power of attorney a petition to appoint a guardian of the person as to be filed in court to allow the guardian to sign our contract authorizing work on the case.

It is wise not to speak with the negligent nursing home or their insurance representative in the event they call you to try and settle for the Henderson Negligent Nursing Home's Abuse. Your best bet is to permit a personal injury lawyer with skills at working on Henderson negligent Nursing Home and Abuse cases work on the claim. Normally the adjusters in these matters are highly skilled at working on these claims and will strategically work toward the smallest payment possible or to prevent any payment on your case. The greatest strength you often has in winning your case and getting the top payout of money damages is that the insurance adjuster is aware you have a Henderson personal injury attorney who will assemble the case and who will litigate it in court if a fair payment is not made. My office files our own Henderson negligence nursing home lawsuits in court. If we file a lawsuit the insurance company will be forced to pay a defense personal injury lawyer who will normally bill those several hundred dollars per hour and many thousands of dollars each month until the case concludes.

The Federal Medicare laws require repayment to the Federal Government if money is recovered against a Henderson Negligent nursing home. The Medicare program has a way to calculate the amount of money the Federal Government will take back out of the settlement. They are paid back less than they pay out though. They must pay part of the personal injury lawyer's fees. There is some additional reduction for costs spent by our personal injury law office to win the case such as the nurse's expert fees and the court filing fees. If the patient died to the negligent nurse's care at the Henderson Nursing Home, the deceased person's estate may be entitled to some money. It normally takes a skilled Henderson personal injury lawyer to resolve these complex matters and the insurance company will not issue a settlement check without the Federal Government's name on it if they paid money towards the medical care.

If the patient died due to the negligence of the Henderson Nursing Home, there would be one year to file the case in court under the statute of limitation. The "heirs" can recover under Nevada's wrongful death statute for the value of the loss of the loved one which value can be significant. Handling a wrongful death claim against a negligent Henderson nursing home is complex. You need a personal injury lawyer with experience in helping with Henderson Nursing Home and abuse cases to win the top value for the suffering the negligent nursing home caused. A spouse is considered an "heir" under Nevada's Wrongful Death Statute. Children can also be defined as heirs.

This article I have written is not an exhaustive review of the Nevada nursing home laws concerning claims against Henderson negligent Nursing Homes, I have written this article to give you an understanding of how complex resolving these cases can be in order that you understand how important it is to retain an personal injury attorney with experience in handling negligent nursing home cases in Henderson, Nevada. Call and talk to me, Jack G. Bernstein, Esq. with twenty eight years of experience at 702-434-4444 or 1-888-529-4529 toll free, or my law partner, Scott L. Poisson, Esq. with eighteen years of experience at the above phone numbers (we personally answer our own call), or email us now at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to further discuss your case. It is free to consultation with us. We get paid IF we win money damages only. If we cannot win you money, we will not charge you any attorney fees.