During our over 20 years of representing clients in nursing home abuse and malpractice litigation in Daytona Beach and Deltona we have noticed that the course of nursing home lawsuits is strikingly similar from one case to the next. Nursing homes often repeat the same mistakes such as failing to turn and reposition a patient who cannot move in bed and thereby causing a bedsore.

The defenses nursing homes raise in many lawsuits are frequently similar. They try to blame somebody else rather than assume responsibility. Here are three things we see nursing homes say throughout the course of a lawsuit:

1. The nursing home resident was very sick.  At almost all mediations of nursing home lawsuits the defense lawyer starts the nursing home’s statement by pointing out that the resident was very sick when admitted.  The lawyer typically recites a long list of diagnoses that doctors have written into the medical records.  This includes diagnoses for a long time before admission to the nursing home. To look for as many diagnoses as possible, the defense lawyers get copies of the resident medical records, read them for references to other medical records and get copies of those.

The point the lawyer is trying to make is that whatever injury the residents sustained in the nursing home was caused by the resident being very sick rather than by nursing home negligence. Of course, this approach entirely misses the point that residents are in nursing homes because they are very sick and that, therefore, they need good care to avoid further injury and deterioration of their condition.

2. It was the doctor’s fault.  In an effort to shift blame, nursing homes frequently claim the resident’s doctor was negligent. For instance if our client fell and broke her hip at the nursing home, the defense sometimes claims that it was the doctor’s responsibility to order other interventions such as bedside rails and the doctor did not do so.  Or, if our client developed a bedsore in part caused by the nursing home using the wrong type of pressure relief mattress, the defense could claim that the   nurses were simply following the doctor’s orders.

This defense misses the point that the nurses spend much more time with the resident and are responsible for informing the doctor about the resident’s condition and suggesting appropriate nursing interventions.

3. It was the family’s fault. Nursing homes frequently claim that the care they provide must have been good because the family did not move the resident to another nursing home. They also claim that the nursing home is a good one because the family chose it in the first place.

This defense misses various points.  Family members often cannot make the choice of the nursing home.  An insurance company or a hospital discharge planner frequently makes the choice. Further, family members are not medical experts and   do not have the knowledge to know whether or not the care provided by a nursing home is up to standard.