Can You Sue a Nursing Home for Resident on Resident Abuse?

When the nursing home that your family has trusted failed to protect your loved one from a violent attack, you can hold them legally accountable. The Atlanta nursing home abuse lawyers at Hall & Lampros, LLP can file a lawsuit on behalf of your family to seek compensation.

Nursing home abuse is a very broad category that encompasses many types of abuse from different perpetrators. If your loved one has been attacked by a fellow resident, it can be a sign that the nursing home failed to uphold their own duty of care. Any breach of the duty can be negligence, even if the attack was not violence or attack was not committed by nursing home staff.

Call the aggressive attorneys at the nursing home abuse law firm Hall & Lampros for a free case review. Our nursing home abuse attorney will take the time to learn the facts before we give you trusted advice and counsel about the path forward.

Nursing Home Residents Often Assault Others

Nursing home residents often end up in a disagreement with each other when they occupy the same space. Some residents are affected by dementia and mental health issues. These disputes can become violent. Given the physical vulnerability of some nursing home residents, they could become seriously injured by an attack. It is possible to sue the nursing home where the physical injury occurred because abuse by another resident may still be the responsibility of the facility.

Physical and sexual abuse are two of the most common forms of mistreatment that residents suffer in a nursing home. In some cases, the abuse is committed by nursing home staff. In other cases, it can occur at the hands of residents. When it comes to abuse and nursing homes, “the buck stops here” with the facility.

One study examined the prevalence of resident-on-resident abuse at nursing homes. The study looked at ten facilities in New York State and found that roughly one in every five residents had an aggressive encounter with another resident within four weeks of the survey. Even more residents have likely had this type of encounter during their stay in the facility.

The Nursing Home Must Protect Your Loved One

The nursing home owes a legal responsibility to the residents to keep them safe. Part of what they must do is screen the residents before admitting them to the facility. If a potential resident has serious mental health issues, or a track record of violent or abusive acts, the nursing home should strongly reconsider whether to admit them. If a resident becomes physically aggressive towards other residents, or exhibits violent tendencies, the nursing home should evaluate whether they should continue to live in the facility.

Nursing home residents have a right to be free from abuse. Period. The regulation is not written just to prohibit abuse by nursing home staff. The law covers all types of abuse from every possible source. If one resident is abusing another, it counts as an incident which needs to be reported to the State of Georgia within two hours.

The nursing home owes your loved one a duty of care to act reasonably under the circumstances. While not every instance of violence from fellow residents is automatically negligence on the part of the nursing home, chances are that the staff has observed some type of aggressive behavior from the violent resident before. They may have overlooked or failed to see something in their history before they admitted the resident. Alternatively, staff may have turned a blind eye to a particular resident’s behavior, or they may not have even known of the situation because they are short-staffed.

Here, the lawsuit would be filed against the nursing home for their failure to protect your loved one. Ultimately, they have the responsibility to look after your family member’s health and well-being. The nursing home not only needs to protect your loved one from known dangers, but they also need to anticipate potential hazards that can harm residents, especially those posed by other residents.

Either way, when your loved one has been attacked by a fellow resident, whether it is physical or sexual, you should hire a law firm to investigate. Even if the nursing home followed the law and reported the abuse, there is plenty that they may not be telling you. A nursing home abuse lawyer could get down to the bottom of what happened and potentially file a lawsuit on your family’s behalf.

Contact an Atlanta Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Today

Get justice for what happened to your family by hiring Hall & Lampros today. Our nursing home abuse attorneys will launch a comprehensive investigation of what happened to your loved one and can file a lawsuit if it reveals wrongdoing by the nursing home. You can call us today at 404-876-8100 to schedule your free case evaluation.