The value of a nursing home abuse case will vary depending on the facts of each individual case. There are three primary drivers to case value: liability, causation, and damages. Cases that are high in value tend to have substantial evidence that support all three.
Liability simply means, did the nursing home’s action, or inaction, fall below the standard of reasonable care? So, for example, a nurse is required to follow physician’s orders to clean or change wounds at certain intervals. If the nurse does not do so, the nursing home may be liable for a resulting infection because the nurse’s actions were objectively inappropriate as a professional medical provider.
The second driver of case value is causation. Causation is whether the action of the nursing home directly or proximately caused an injury. So, using our previous example, causation would mean linking an infection directly to the nurse’s failure to change or clean the wound appropriately. Remember that, just because X happened before Y, does not mean that X caused Y. As such, causation is almost always the most difficult aspect of a case to prove. Cases in which causation is obvious, for example, a broken bone from a dropped resident, can sometimes be higher in value than those in which there are a host of potential causes of the injury.
The third, and perhaps most important, component of nursing home case value is damages. How much did the injury affect the life of the resident? The greater the physical impact on the life, generally the higher the value. So, again, let’s look at our example: negligently failing to change a wound that directly results in an infection. A case in which the infection results in a few days of antibiotic treatment will be of far less value than a case where the infection leads to a lost limb, or even death.
So, as you can imagine, there will be times in which liability and causation are clear. But since the resident’s damages, or injuries, are low, the overall case value will tend to be low.
If your loved one has been injured or abused at a nursing home, and you are not sure about the value of the claim, please feel free to call and speak to one of our Georgia nursing home neglect lawyers today. Our consultations are always free. If you would like more information about this topic, be sure to click on our other videos, or better yet, click the subscribe button to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you.
