Personal Injury Law

Jury Finds Nursing Home Neglect Led to Woman's Death

By Kirk Bernard, Esq.

A jury has awarded $51,000 to the family of a nursing home resident, who died after suffering a large bed sore that ate through her skin, to the bone. According to a recent news report, the jury also decided that the nursing home should cover attorney's fees incurred by the resident's children over five years. The 88-year-old resident died in December 2004 after she underwent a procedure to remove bedsores and treat bone infections caused by the nursing home's extreme neglect including, failing to clean her. Nursing home administrators maintained that the woman had bedsores on other parts of her body and that she did not suffer them as a result of negligence.

Nursing home negligence lawsuits may not yield as much as other personal injury cases in terms of damages. However, in this case, the family gets the satisfaction of holding the facility accountable for their wrongdoing. The civil justice system is about righting a wrong and holding those who broke our nation's civil laws responsible and financially liable to the victim. That's exactly what happened here. The nursing home has been made to pay for their wrongdoing.

Full post as published by Seattle Injury Blog on December 28, 2009 (boomark / email).