Nursing Home Neglect Lawyers in Marietta
Pressure ulcers, falls, dehydration, medication errors and elopement are not accidents in a facility that is staffed and supervised properly. The chart will rarely say so. The staffing records, the state survey history, the corporate ownership structure and the census will. These cases also arrive wrapped in an admission agreement containing an arbitration clause, and whether that clause binds the family is a real fight worth having at the front of the case.
What we do on these cases
- We get the complete chart rather than the summary, and we have it read by someone who has worked a floor. The entries that matter in these cases are usually the ones that are missing, late, or written after the fact.
- We pull the staffing records and the census against the same dates. A facility that was short-staffed on the shifts when the wounds developed is a different case from one that was not, and that comparison is arithmetic rather than opinion.
- We look at the survey history and the ownership structure. Repeat deficiencies on the same tag, and an operating company separated from the entity that actually holds the assets, both change what the case is and who has to be in it.
- We read the admission agreement before we do anything else, because who signed it, in what capacity, and whether they had authority to bind the resident are all questions with real answers and real consequences.
What the insurer is doing while you wait
The defense in these cases usually begins with the resident rather than with the facility: they were frail, they were declining, the wound was unavoidable given their condition, the fall was the consequence of a refusal to use a call button. Some of that is sometimes true. All of it is the reason the staffing data matters, because it moves the question from what the resident was like to what the facility actually did on the days in question.
The other early move is arbitration. Facilities routinely seek to enforce a clause in the admission paperwork, which if enforced takes the case out of court, out of the public record and away from a jury. It is frequently signed by an adult child under time pressure at admission, sometimes without any legal authority to bind the resident at all — which is exactly why it is worth contesting at the front of the case rather than conceding it.
What it costs
There is no fee to talk to us and no fee unless we win. These files carry substantial record and review costs, and we tell you what we expect them to be before we open one.
“No fee unless we win” refers only to the attorney's fee — court costs and other expenses of legal action usually must be paid by the client, and contingent fees are not permitted in all types of cases.
Results in this area
- $1.6MPressure injury and sepsis in a skilled nursing facilitySettlement · 2023
- $475,000Unwitnessed fall with fracture in an assisted living facilitySettlement · 2021
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case is different, and the value of any case depends on facts that are specific to it.
Questions we get about these cases
Is a bedsore automatically neglect?
No, and any firm telling you otherwise is overselling. Some pressure injuries are genuinely unavoidable in a person whose condition makes them so. The question is what the facility assessed, what plan it wrote, whether it actually turned and repositioned the resident on that plan, and whether it escalated when the wound progressed. That is answerable from the chart and the staffing records together, and the answer is frequently that nothing was done at all.
The admission agreement has an arbitration clause. Does that stop us?
Not necessarily, and it is worth fighting at the front of the case rather than accepting. The threshold questions are who signed it and whether that person actually had authority to bind the resident — an adult child signing at admission often does not, absent a power of attorney or a guardianship. Beyond authority, there are arguments about how the clause was presented and whether agreeing to it was made a condition of admission.
Who can bring the claim if my parent has passed away?
It splits the same way any death claim in Georgia splits. The wrongful death claim belongs to the statutory next of kin in a set order, and the estate claim — covering the medical expenses and the conscious suffering before death — belongs to the administrator of the estate. In nursing home cases the estate side is frequently the larger half, because the suffering is prolonged and heavily documented.
Will reporting to the state hurt the case?
Generally the opposite. A complaint investigation produces a survey record created by an independent state agency, which is evidence nobody can accuse the family of manufacturing. It also protects other residents, which is usually the reason families ask. The one thing worth doing first is preserving your own copies of what you already have, because access to records can become harder once a facility knows a complaint has been filed.
Tell us what happened.
Three steps, about two minutes. A lawyer reads every one of these.