If you believe your elderly loved one has been used in a nursing home, you may be considering filing a lawsuit against the facility. But first, you need to understand what counts as nursing home abuse and how to prove the damages your loved one deserves in court. You will be able to make more informed decisions if you have a nursing home abuse lawyer on your side. Your attorney will analyze your loved one’s situation carefully and determine if their case qualifies them for a claim.
What is Nursing Home Abuse
Your loved one may be abused in a nursing home if they have been intentionally harmed, leaving them with physical or emotional pain. Examples of nursing home abuse include slapping, unreasonable confinement, hitting, physical punishment, pushing, and intimidation. Also, depriving a patient of goods and services can be a form of abuse when this leads to mental anguish.
Your loved one’s caregiver must have performed these actions willfully. Also, physical harm includes sexual abuse as well as inappropriate behavior like undesirable touching, indecent exposure, rape, and molestation. Additionally, non-verbal acts like harassment attempts, intimidation, and humiliation are forms of nursing home abuse.
Proving Damages in Court
It’s important to be able to present solid evidence that proves your elderly loved one sustained harm in a nursing home. This evidence must prove the caregivers’ guilty without reasonable doubt. You can show photos of any signs of abuse such as bruises.
However, some abuse cases do not involve physical injury. Intimidation and emotional abuse are not easy to prove in court. You must present witness testimonies, which can come from medical experts, psychologists, or patients. With the assistance of a skilled layer, you can efficiently gather the necessary evidence that can prove the damages sustained by your elderly loved one due to nursing home abuse. This evidence includes doctor’s reports, security footage, and eyewitness testimony. The damages your loved one may be able to recover through a nursing home abuse claim include medical costs from their previous illness, pain and suffering, and punitive damages.
If your elderly loved one has been abused in a nursing home, you must contact an experienced lawyer who can assess their case and provide the best legal advice. The pain and suffering sustained by an elderly person due to nursing home abuse can be devastating. This is the reason attorneys work hard to help abused people get the best outcome in their case.
