Can You Sue for a Slip and Fall Injury in a Nursing Home?

When you entrust a nursing home to care for a loved one, you expect that facility to do everything it can to keep them as safe as possible. Sometimes, though, nursing homes fail to provide that care. A slip and fall accident can be devastating no matter what your age may be. When it happens to an older person in a nursing home, it can be even more catastrophic. In instances such as this, family members of the injured person may be able to sue the nursing facility for compensation.

Please contact the Jones Law Group if your elderly family member suffered injuries in a nursing home slip and fall accident due to the negligence of the facility. You can call us at 727-571-1333, or you can contact us online for a free consultation.

Can a Nursing Home Be Liable for Your Loved One’s Injuries?

Nursing facilities should always have the safety of their residents as their top priority. While this is typically the case, there are, unfortunately, some exceptions. Many residents of nursing homes are at a heightened risk for falling, because they either have cognitive issues, they have coordination problems, or that have some other type of difficulty.

Nursing homes are required to maintain standards regarding the care and safety of their residents. When they fail to live up to those standards, they could be held accountable for their negligence. This can be a very difficult type of case to win, however, without the help of an experienced attorney. The Jones Law Group has attorneys who know what needs to be done in order to prevail in this type of litigation.

Nursing Homes Owe a Standard of Care to Their Residents

Just like any other type of personal injury lawsuit, taking action against a nursing home due to a slip and fall accident requires evidence in order to succeed. You’ll have to prove that the nursing facility failed to meet the standard of care required by law. When a resident suffers an injury in a slip and fall because the nursing home failed to comply with this standard of care, then you may have grounds to file a lawsuit.

Risks and Injuries Associated with Slips and Falls

There are many potentially debilitating injuries that can stem from a slip and fall accident. Even someone who is completely healthy and strong can be severely hurt. When the victim is older, and possibly frail, the injuries could be especially serious – possibly even fatal.

These are just a few of the injuries that commonly occur as the result of slip and fall accidents:

• Head injuries: This is one of the worst kinds of slip and fall injuries. When someone hits their head on the floor after falling, that can result in a wide range of injuries, including a concussion, a brain hemorrhage, or some other type of traumatic brain injury.
• Hip fractures: Elderly people are especially susceptible to hip fractures due to a fall.
• Back and spinal cord damage: When someone falls directly backward, the resulting impact can severely affect the spine and back. This can lead to permanent debilitation, such as paralysis. These kinds of injuries are extremely expensive to treat, leading to financial ruin.

Hazards Within Nursing Homes That Can Cause Accidents

Nursing homes can be filled with hazards for residents – not just physical ones, such as obstructions and slippery surfaces, but also hazards created by negligent hiring and training practices. These are just some of the many dangers that nursing home patients can encounter.

• Hiring unqualified caregivers, or not having adequate staff to cover the number of residents in the facility.
• A lack of call buttons or other protocols to help ensure resident safety.
• Failure to keep conditions clean and sanitary.
• Not providing the training needed to show employees how to properly care for residents.
• Not giving residents the assistive devices they need in order to move around the facility as safely as possible.
• Failure to make changes as needed to a patient’s care plan, or failure to assess those plans whatsoever.
• Failure to ensure proper lighting, or to keep floors dry. Both conditions could contribute to a slip and fall.
• Items placed in a way that residents can’t avoid.
• Cables, medical equipment, furniture and other items that aren’t properly secured.
• Lack of handrails that are strong enough to support a resident’s weight.

How to Sue a Nursing Home

If you are considering suing a nursing home, it will be important to have some idea of what will be needed to help provide you with the best possibility of achieving a positive outcome. These are just some of the components of a successful nursing home lawsuit.

• Providing necessary documentation: You’ll need to gather all reports associated with the accident. This will likely include medical records, medical expenses, insurance information and more. Your personal injury attorney will tell you more, and can also help you obtain the documentation you’ll need to make your case as strong as possible.
• Investigating the accident: Your attorney will also perform a thorough investigation of the accident, in order to help strengthen your case even further. Attorneys will typically interview any witnesses who might have seen the incident and obtain reports from the nursing facility. Additionally, they will look through any video evidence that may exist, such as security camera footage.
• Talking to the insurance company: Skilled attorneys will also have to negotiate with the defendant’s (in this case, the nursing home) insurance provider in order to help you obtain a fair compensation offer. If that offer isn’t forthcoming, your attorney will be prepared to take the case to court.

Hire an Experienced Slip and Fall Attorney ASAP

If a loved one has been hurt in a slip and fall accident while in the care of a nursing home, please get in touch with the Jones Law Firm as soon as you possibly can. The faster you hire an attorney, the better your chances of prevailing in your litigation. Contact us online or call 727-571-1333 for a free evaluation of your case.