If you are considering filing a nursing home abuse claim, it is important to speak with an experienced attorney. In the event that you file a complaint against a nursing home, you will need to present all evidence of the losses or suffering that resulted from the nursing home’s conduct. Additionally, to strengthen your claim, you should provide as much information on the following types of damages:
- Necessary and reasonable medical expenses;
- Actual past expenses for physician, hospital, nursing and laboratory fees, medications, prosthetic devices, etc.;
- Anticipated future expenses;
- Harm from conditions caused by prolonged immobilization;
- Pain and suffering from physical injuries;
- Pain and suffering reasonably likely to occur in the future;
- “Phantom pain” and other subjective pain that may not be readily apparent to others;
- Mental anguish;
- Harm from loss of sleep;
- Past and future impairment of the ability to enjoy life.
Other Damages
- Mental Suffering: Monetary damages may be awarded for a nursing home residents or their survivors, for pain, suffering, disfigurement, and impaired enjoyment of life. These damages are awarded for both physical and mental pain. Mental suffering for which one may recover damages can include the following:
- Fear of the consequences of an injury while awaiting help;
- Fear experienced in the period between realizing an incident likely to cause injury was going to occur and the time of occurrence;
- Fear experienced after an injury about what else could have happened;
- Anxiety about one’s physical health and future well-being;
- Fear of the need for future surgery as a result of one’s injuries;
- Fear of increased vulnerability to future injury;
- Post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Disfigurement: The elderly are entitled to damages for disfigurement caused by another. Disfigurement can include scars, amputation, hair loss, or any other injury that affects one’s appearance. The dignity of senior citizens should be respected and preserved whenever possible, and if it is affected by a disfiguring injury, an appropriate complaint against the nursing home for monetary damages should be made.
- Loss of enjoyment of life: The loss of the enjoyment of life is generally understood to mean one is deprived of the ordinary pleasures of living a full life. With an elderly client, this could mean the ability to play with one’s grandchildren, to walk and exercise as one did prior to an injury, to communicate meaningfully with others, or to engage in pastimes one previously enjoyed.
- Shortened Life Expectancy: Courts generally do not recognize shortened life expectancy as a separate injury, but it may be considered in determining the seriousness of an injury, decreased earning capacity, pain and suffering, and mental suffering from the knowledge that one’s life will be shorter. Jurors are typically told to determine a plaintiff’s future damages based on standard life expectancy tables; however, due to improvements in medical science and living conditions over the years, an attorney might argue that life expectancy was or is actually greater than the standard tables would indicate.
- Punitive Damages: Punitive damages may be awarded in cases where it is shown that a nursing home engaged in malicious or reckless conduct. In such cases, it is sometimes argued that the nursing home resident was deprived of his or her statutory rights.
Contact An Experienced Nursing Home Abuse Attorney
The personal injury attorneys at The Levin Firm Personal Injury Lawyers understand that nursing home abuse cases require a team of lawyers, nurses and others trained to review the facts of these cases, including medical records.
At The Levin Firm Personal Injury Lawyers, our Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nursing home abuse personal injury lawyers aggressively and zealously represent our clients and obtain the best possible results. We also work with highly-regarded nursing home abuse experts to determine the type of nursing home abuse and how and why it happened. At times, we will work with other law firms that have particular expertise to assure that our clients receive the most thorough and zealous representation.
When you need a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or New Jersey personal injury attorney to represent you, a family member, or friend in a nursing home abuse case, contact The Levin Firm Personal Injury Lawyers at (215) 825-5183. We represent every client zealously in order to obtain the best results possible in each case.
Sources
- http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/reporting-nursing-home-injuries-abuse.html
- http://injury.findlaw.com/torts-and-personal-injuries/nursing-home-injuries-proof-of-loss.html
- http://injury.findlaw.com/torts-and-personal-injuries/legal-rights-of-nursing-home-residents.html
- http://injury.findlaw.com/torts-and-personal-injuries/nursing-home-abuse.html