Settlement: $500,000
Our client’s 85-year-old mother died after she was admitted to a nursing home for long-term care and it failed to implement the necessary safety measures. Upon admission, she could walk with a walker but required supervision with activities of daily living. Although the facility developed an initial care plan identifying her as “at risk for falls related to weakness and dementia,” the interventions listed were generic and not individualized to her needs.
Over a one-month period, our client’s mother sustained at least 10 falls in her room, several of which caused head injuries. Her children, who visited daily, repeatedly asked the facility to provide safety measures, but although it eventually added the interventions “bilateral fall mats” and “keep in high traffic area” to her care plan, the mats were never put into place, and she was not kept in a high traffic area but unsupervised in bed.
One morning, our client visited and discovered that her mother was in pain and could not walk or bear weight. She alerted staff who were unaware of the change in condition and had not documented a fall. The facility initially refused to call 911, but our client insisted on sending her mother to the hospital. X-rays revealed a hip fracture, for which she underwent surgery, but she suffered severe pain and died 2 1/2 weeks later, leaving behind four loving children and numerous grandchildren.
Our client’s conviction that the nursing home had caused her mother’s untimely death brought her to our Charlottesville office. We quickly filed suit and set the case for trial. During depositions, staff described severe understaffing issues. One nurse described how she had been working alone and went to check on our client’s mother when she found her sitting on the edge of her low bed. She testified that she had gently lowered her to the floor and then had to leave her on the floor while she went to another hall to get help because no one was available to answer a call bell. The nurse insisted that no fall had taken place, but her patient’s orthopedic injuries told a different story.
The case resolved following a judicial settlement conference.