Nursing homes and elderly care homes are places where senior adults can go to live under the care and supervision of trained nurses and medical professionals. These places offer a sense of independence, without the risks that come with living alone without 24-hour monitored care. Nursing homes and elderly care homes, however, are responsible for the health and condition of their residents, and if their care is neglected could be found liable for any of the damages caused by their negligence. One way in which care can be neglected is through malnutrition. Malnutrition is a danger for senior adults, as their systems tend to be far more sensitive to intense physical strain. Those who experience elderly home and nursing home malnutrition are often unaware of their legal rights. In this article, we will cover the rights of nursing home residents, the damages caused by malnutrition, and whether or not you can sue a nursing home for their negligence. If you have any further questions after reading this article our experienced team of legal consultants can help. At Normandie Law Firm our experienced Los Angeles lawyers are experienced in handling nursing home malnutrition lawsuits and fighting for the rights of senior adults. Feel free to contact our Los Angeles law firm for a free consultation from one of our top-rated legal associates.
Can Residents of A Nursing Home File A Lawsuit For Malnutrition?
When clients come into our law firm looking for a nursing home abuse lawyer to represent them and their case they often ask our attorneys experienced in the field whether or not they can sue for not taking proper care of, or not feeding their senior loved ones. The answer to this question is yes; you can sue the nursing home for poor care. However, to give you an idea we’ve included some of the questions our nursing home abuse lawyers are asked on a regular basis about nursing home abuse in regards to malnutrition:
- Can a nursing home be sued for the malnutrition of a resident?
- Is it elder abuse if a nursing home patient suffers from malnutrition?
- Can you file a lawsuit against an elderly care facility for the malnutrition of a patient?
As stated before, the answer to these questions is yes, you can sue the elderly care home for malnutrition, and the resident can sue the nursing home for malnutrition. However, the process of doing so can be somewhat complicated. For one, you must be able to prove that the injured party’s malnutrition was caused by the negligence of the nursing home staff. While Elder Abuse Laws and Nursing Home Abuse Laws dictate that nursing home staff are expected to feed and take care of their residents when hungry properly, there are some instances wherein the staff or elderly care home owner can dispute these claims. For this reason, you may want to consult an experienced nursing home negligence lawyer to help guide you through the process of gathering evidence, filing your claim, and representing you and your case in court.
Elder Abuse Laws
Elder Abuse Laws tend to vary depending on the state in which the incident occurred. However, for the sake of this article, we will focus on the laws that are enforced by the state of California. In California, elder abuse law defines an individual aged 65 years and older as a senior adult. These laws also state that abuse can result in either a criminal or civil lawsuit that can be filed against the nursing home staff or owners.
State law dictates that criminal elder abuse occurs when an individual that knows that another individual is a senior, inflicts suffering upon said senior with intent to cause harm or let said senior suffer. This suffering can mean anything from physical pain to mental suffering. A criminal suit also includes situations wherein a care holder allows the senior to be put into a harmful situation wherein their health is directly endangered.
Civil lawsuits are somewhat different, as they are defined as situations where elder abuse was committed with intent to physically abuse, neglect, financially abuse, abandon, isolate, abduct, or cause any other form of treatment that resulted in the physical, the emotional or mental harm of the senior adult. Some common forms of abuse that tend to occur in civil elderly abuse lawsuits are bulleted below:
- Abandonment: The desertion of an elder by someone who is considered their caregiver.
- Abduction: The removal of the conservator to another state without consent.
- Financial Abuse: The exploitation, or use of an elder adult’s funds, property, or other assets
- Isolation: The intentional prevention of an elder adult from receiving contact with the outside world, such as email, telephone calls, or visitors.
- Mental Suffering: The infliction of fear, agitation, confusion through a form of intimidating behavior.
- Neglect: A failure to adequately provide adequate care to a senior such as assisting in personal hygiene, providing food, clothing, shelter, protecting an elder from health and safety hazards, or preventing malnutrition.
- Physical Abuse: The infliction of direct physical pain, injury, sexual assault, or use of physical or chemical restraints for punishment.
Knowing which form of lawsuit you intend to file can make a large difference in the outcome of your case. For this reason, if you are attempting to file an elder abuse lawsuit it is in your best interest to seek the consultation of a skilled and experienced elder abuse lawyer.
Nursing Home Laws
Unlike Elder Abuse Law, Nursing Home Law is dictated by Federal jurisdiction. These laws state that nursing home residents have the right to maintain and receive adequate nutrition, personal hygiene, mental and emotional support, and social involvement. Similarly, under the Nursing Home Reform Law, nursing homes must provide the following for their residents:
- Sufficient staff coverage
- Full evaluations of each resident’s particular needs
- Develop comprehensive care plans for each resident; this involves proper hygiene, nutrition and diet, and medication.
- Ensure that the residents are adequately supervised
- Promote and hope to better a resident’s quality of life
- Ensure their residents’ dignity and respect is left intact
- Keep accurate and complete records of each residents’ medical history on hand
- Expect and submit to unannounced inspections, and allow all residents’ to give inspection interviews.
Nursing homes can neglect to provide proper care in a variety of ways. In filing a nursing home malnutrition lawsuit, it is important to understand where these negligent actions took place, and how they directly influenced the damages inflicted upon you and your loved ones. Listed below are some examples where a breach of care can occur in a nursing home malnutrition lawsuit:
- Negligent Hiring: Nursing home staff is hired, and staff member ends up neglecting, abusing, or intentionally harming a patient. Negligent hiring can also occur when the staff is not properly trained to react or treat conditions like malnutrition.
- Negligent Supervision: If staff fail to monitor their residents adequately, and said lack of supervision results in the injury of a resident.
- Failure to maintain adequate health and safety procedures: If the nursing home staff fails to meet proper care, health, and safety procedures, and said failure results in the injury of a patient.
- Failure to provide adequate medical treatment: If a sub-standard level of care is provided, and said poor results in the injury of a patient.
As shown previously, nursing homes and their staff are expected to provide their residents with adequate care regarding nutrition, hygiene, physical health, and social freedoms. If at any point there is a failure to live up to this expectation and a resident is injured as a result of malnutrition, or any other form of injury, then they could face a damaging lawsuit. However, when filing a lawsuit, it is in your best interest to understand the damages that malnutrition can cause. Identifying how you or your loved one was damaged by nursing home malnutrition can contribute significantly to the outcome of your case.
Malnutrition: The Damages of Being Left Hungry
Malnutrition is defined as the lack of proper nutrition caused by not receiving enough to eat, not having a stable diet that provides necessary nutrients to the body, or being unable to use the nutrients from the food that one does eat. Senior adults are incredibly susceptible to the damages caused by malnutrition, as their bodies systems are often left weaker from age. For a senior adult or any other individual, to keep a healthy and stable nutritious diet, they must consume foods from some of the following food groups:
- Carbohydrates
- Fats
- Proteins
- Dairy
While it is important to eat enough food, it is also important to eat enough of the right foods. Even if someone receives enough food, they can still not receive the proper nutrients to keep their body alive and healthy. If a senior adult fails to receive proper nutrition from their care provider, they could face the damages that malnutrition can cause. Some of the damages that malnutrition can cause include the following:
- Reduced mass of vital tissues and muscles
- Decreased stamina and mobility
- Difficulty breathing, and an increased risk of infection and respiratory failure
- Weakened immune system response, which increases risk of infections, and the time it takes to recover from said infection
- Poor libido
- Difficulty maintaining body temperature, which increases the risk of hypothermia
- Wounds take longer to heal, and illness may take longer to recover from
Any of these damages caused by malnutrition can lead to the wrongful death of a senior adult, and as such should be taken seriously by nursing home staff. If a nursing home staff fails to maintain the nutritional diet of a resident, and they are injured because of it, that resident has every right to pursue legal action against the party responsible. However, as mentioned before, fighting for an elder abuse lawsuit can be challenging to take on alone. For this reason, it is in your best interest to retain the assistance of a lawyer that is experienced in cases of this nature.
How Normandie Law Firm Can Help
If you or a loved one has suffered from malnutrition at a nursing or elderly care home you may be eligible to file a lawsuit for the damages that you have had to endure. Our law firm has years of expertise in fighting for the rights of senior adults and their loved ones. Those who file their case with our Angeles law firm could find some if not all of the following damages compensable to them:
- Past and Future Medical Bills
- Loss of Wages
- Loss of Potential Future Wages
- Pain and Suffering
- Emotional Distress (depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc…)
- Punitive Damages
At Normandie Law Firm our experienced Los Angeles nursing home abuse lawyers can guide you through the process of building your case, filing your claim, and collecting compensation for the damages that you and your loved ones have had to endure. While our attorneys are based in Los Angeles, they also practice in San Diego, Orange County, Riverside, Bakersfield, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento and throughout the state of California.
Free Second Opinions
Other attorneys will sign you up to their firm but will disappear once your name is on the paper as they are busy signing up more cases. In these instances, their business is based more on volume and will attempt to sign up as many cases as possible. In turn, they will spend less time on cases resulting in severely reduced settlements. Our firm will not treat you like a number. We will be in communication with you throughout our lawsuit and will treat you like family. So if you already have an attorney don’t worry, we’ll give you a second review of your case 100% free of charge.
Zero Fee Guarantee-No Upfront Fees Ever
If you contact our law offices today, we can walk you through the complicated process of filing your claim completely free of charge. As a show this commitment to you and your case we offer our clients the benefits of a zero fee guarantee policy. Under our zero fee policy, all clients don’t pay for our services until their case is won. If you feel in need of a second opinion, second opinion case reviews are also free under this policy. Please, feel free to give us a call, and we can guide you down the path of receiving proper compensation for your damages.
