DeKalb County Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer

DeKalb County Nursing Home Abuse Attorney

Many families throughout DeKalb County trust nursing homes and other elder care facilities with the daily care and medical treatment their elderly loved ones need. While most discharge their duties in good faith and strive to provide safe and comfortable care for their residents, many elders throughout Georgia experience abuse. A skilled DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer is the ideal resource to consult if your family has discovered that an elderly loved one has been abused.

Experienced Legal Counsel for Nursing Home Abuse in DeKalb County, GA

Pleasant Law, PLLC, is ready to assist you and your family in building a cohesive nursing home abuse case in DeKalb County. If you have discovered that an elderly relative has been abused by those responsible for their care, it is crucial to remove them from this dangerous situation immediately and to understand your legal rights when it comes to ensuring accountability and compensation for your family’s damages.

Our firm accepts nursing home abuse cases that many other attorneys throughout DeKalb County will not take due to the difficulty these cases often present. Nursing homes and their parent companies enjoy extensive legal protections that can make it very difficult for the average person to hold them accountable for wrongdoing. However, it is not impossible with the right DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer on your side.

Pleasant Law, PLLC, has successfully represented many past clients in a wide range of nursing home abuse cases, and we are ready to leverage this experience in your impending case. We take time to listen to our client’s unique stories, identify the greatest challenges and opportunities they might face, and develop an individualized legal strategy that aims for maximum recovery in the shortest possible timeframe.

Identifying Nursing Home Abuse

One of the most challenging aspects of any nursing home abuse case in DeKalb County is accurately identifying abuse when it occurs. Nursing home abuse statistics show that abuse is more common than many people realize, and whenever a caregiver intentionally abuses a resident, they will typically take steps to conceal their actions, intimidate the victim against speaking out, or worse, and their employer may actively conceal their actions, making it even harder for the family to determine what has actually happened.

When you visit an elderly loved one in a nursing home, it is vital to carefully examine their behavior, their surroundings, and the demeanor of other residents as well as staff. If your loved one seems depressed, fearful, or nervous, it could be a sign that they have been abused but are afraid to say anything about it. Additionally, if you notice any signs of neglect, such as bedsores, it may be essential to consult a bedsore lawyer who can help address the situation and ensure that your loved one receives the care they deserve.

Unexplained injuries, a sudden worsening of their medical condition, frequently moving the resident to different living spaces, and problems with their living arrangements are all important warning signs you should not ignore. It is also vital to remember that nursing home abuse manifests in several different ways:

• Physical abuse is one of the most common examples of nursing home abuse and can include the intentional striking of a resident, purposefully being too rough with them when repositioning them, helping them move around, or allowing them to become hurt. If you notice bruises or other injuries and staff cannot produce an incident report, or if your loved one hesitates to talk about it, it is a major red flag.
• Unfortunately, many nursing home residents are subjected to various forms of sexual abuse. This could lead to exposure to sexually transmitted diseases, other medical complications, and psychological trauma. The abuser in this type of situation can face severe criminal penalties alongside their civil liability for the damages they caused.
• Neglect occurs whenever a caregiver fails to provide basic necessities for their patient, such as food, water, clean bedding, and proper medication. If neglect occurs intentionally, then it qualifies as abuse.
• Verbal and emotional abuse can be extremely damaging to elderly nursing home patients. They may struggle with memory loss and other degenerative conditions that decrease resilience from these experiences, and the psychological distress they experience can cause their physical health to deteriorate rapidly.

If you suspect an elderly loved one has experienced any type of nursing home abuse, it is vital to gather as much information as you can about the issue as swiftly as possible and to speak with a DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer right away. They will know how to secure vital evidence you may need to build your case, such as testimony from witnesses and staff at the nursing home.

Legal Challenges in Nursing Home Abuse Cases

One of the most challenging aspects of any nursing home abuse case is confronting the extensive legal protections that nursing homes and their parent companies often enjoy. Many of these companies have lobbied for various legal protections and have powerful in-house legal teams ready to protect their interests at a moment’s notice. It can be daunting for the average person to imagine confronting any such powerful business.

Pleasant Law, PLLC, excels at nursing home abuse and neglect cases, and our firm has focused exclusively on representing these cases to provide a confident level of legal representation to families who have experienced nursing home abuse. We know how to navigate the legal challenges you could face in your impending case and how to help you succeed in holding the appropriate parties accountable for the abuse your loved one endured. This includes cases involving nursing home elopement, where a facility’s failure to prevent a resident from wandering can lead to dangerous situations.

Proving Liability for Nursing Home Abuse

If you intend to file any type of personal injury claim in DeKalb County, it is important to understand that success with your claim will depend on your ability to firmly establish liability for your claimed damages. In a nursing home abuse case, it will mean identifying the party or parties responsible for the abuse and proving the full scope of damages they caused with their actions.

Vicarious liability can play a role in your case if the defendant’s employer knew or reasonably should have known about the abuse but failed to take steps to correct it. It is also possible for the employer to face liability if they never performed an appropriate background check on their abusive employee, failed to ensure they held necessary credentials and/or training or failed to enforce applicable safety regulations in the workplace.

Your DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer can help you accurately determine fault for your loved one’s abuse. The person who abused them will also face criminal charges for their actions, and their employer could face legal penalties as well. Your legal team will explain how these proceedings could influence your case and potentially affect your family’s total recovery.

Claiming Compensation for Nursing Home Abuse

A successful nursing home case can not only put a stop to your loved one’s abuse but also ensure accountability for their abuser and secure compensation for your family’s losses. In any personal injury case in Georgia, the plaintiff must not only accurately identify the defendant who caused their injury and prove how they caused it, but they must also prove the full extent of their resulting damages.

Your DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer can help you identify all the economic damages you are eligible to claim from the defendant. In most personal injury cases, these include property losses, medical expenses, and lost income. You can hold the defendant accountable for property they stole, damaged, or destroyed, as well as the additional medical expenses your family incurred for treatment of the victim’s injuries.

If you or another family member was forced to take time away from work to address your elderly loved one’s abuse, it is possible to hold the abuser accountable for the income you were unable to earn during this time. Once your attorney calculates all the immediate and future economic losses you can include in your claim, they can help you determine appropriate pain and suffering compensation to seek from the defendant.

In Georgia, pain and suffering compensation is not limited in most personal injury cases, and it is possible for a plaintiff to recover substantial compensation for the physical pain, psychological distress, and emotional trauma they experienced because of a defendant’s negligence or misconduct. Your attorney can help you determine a suitable figure based on the severity of the victim’s abuse and the scope of any long-term or permanent harm they suffered.

Punitive Damages in Nursing Home Abuse Cases

It is possible for a defendant in a personal injury case to also face punitive damages when they have caused a personal injury by breaking the law. As the name implies, punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their behavior, not necessarily to compensate for a loss. The amount a defendant must pay in punitive damages will typically depend on the severity of their actions and their overall financial status.

When a nursing home or other employer bears fault for an incident of abuse, they are likely to face fines and other criminal penalties. Ultimately, it may be possible for the victim of nursing home abuse to secure compensation far beyond what they initially expected, but they will need the right attorney handling their case in order to reach the optimal outcome.

What to Expect From Your Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer

Pleasant Law, PLLC, is ready to work closely with you through every stage of your nursing home abuse case. Our firm has proven experience handling the most challenging nursing home abuse and neglect cases throughout DeKalb County, and we are ready to put this experience to work for you and your family.

Once you secure our firm’s representation, we can immediately get to work gathering the evidence you will need to establish fault for the abuse in Georgia. We know how to investigate these cases thoroughly and determine whether an employer has failed to abide by industry regulations and/or worked to actively conceal their employee’s abusive actions.

If your case requires negotiation with insurance companies, it is important to be prepared for the insurance company to fight back against your claim in whatever way it can and to attempt to settle for as little as possible. We know how to ensure that our client is treated fairly in these negotiations and how to verify that an insurance company has handled a claim for coverage in good faith.

When you must file a civil suit in response to nursing home abuse, trust our team to not only help you build the foundation of your case to prove fault but also to accurately determine the full range of damages that you can seek to enhance your recovery as much as state law allows. If the defendant and/or their employer faces criminal penalties, we can explain how any such variables may influence your civil case.

Contact Us Today to Start Your Nursing Home Abuse Claim

It is important to act quickly once you have determined your elderly loved one has been abused in their nursing home, and this means connecting with a trusted DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer as quickly as possible. Pleasant Law, PLLC, is confident in our ability to provide comprehensive legal representation for all types of nursing home abuse and neglect cases in DeKalb County.

During your initial consultation with our firm, we can listen to your story and explain the legal services we can provide that may assist with your recovery. Our goal is to help you resolve your case and secure as much compensation as possible for your family’s damages in the most efficient possible manner. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation with a DeKalb County nursing home abuse lawyer about your case.