Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse

In the case of Red Bluff v. Tarpley (No. 14-22-190), a Texas appellate panel upheld a $7.1 million verdict for a nursing home assistant, Nicole Tarpley, on Thursday. She was injured when a patient weighing over 300 pounds fell on her leg after a wheelchair malfunction at a Red Bluff LLC-operated nursing home. The lawsuit claimed that Red Bluff did not warn Tarpley about moving bariatric surgery patients alone. Although the trial court gave its final judgment on Feb. 4, 2022, Red Bluff asked to reset the deadline on March 14, 2022.

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Texas Personal Injury Law and Settlements

On this page, our nursing home lawyers will look at nursing home negligence lawsuits involving bedsores (also known as pressure sores or pressure ulcers). Bed sores are skin tissue wounds that develop when a person remains immobile in the same position for prolonged time periods. Bed sores can lead to infection and often death. Nursing home bed sore lawsuits are very common because bed sores are frequently the result of negligent care.

This post will explain how and why bed sores develop and examine the basics of how nursing home bedsore lawsuits work. We will also look at the average settlement value of these cases.

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If you have a power of attorney from your elderly parent or relative that lives in a nursing home, does that mean you can be held liable for nursing home bills? The answer is no, but nursing homes may try to go after you anyway.

In this post, we will explain the basic law regarding power of attorney grants and liability for nursing home bills.

Who is Responsible for Nursing Home Bills?

Unfortunately, most courts around the country have enforced nursing home agreements executed by residents agreeing to forgo civil claims in favor of arbitration for negligence claims.

The game changes in wrongful death cases.  Usually this is for a very simple reason: the parties have changed.  Courts in Maryland and other jurisdictions have largely declined to enforce arbitration agreements between nursing homes and deceased residents because any wrongful death action is not an “asset” of the estate but a claim brought under the plaintiffs’ own right for the loss of their spouse or parent.

There are two new Pennsylvania nursing home cases that favor plaintiffs in these disputes.

Pisano v. Extendicare

In Pisano v. Extendicare Homes, a Pennsylvania intermediate court affirmed the trial court’s motion for summary judgment in a wrongful death and survival action filed against a nursing home.  The nursing home attempted to compel arbitration over both causes of action based on the existence of an agreement to arbitrate all claims against the nursing home, expressly including survival and wrongful death actions.  This was an issue of first impression in Pennsylvania.

The nursing home’s best argument in these cases, which they made in Pisano, is that  a wrongful death claim is a derivative of and defined by the decedent’s rights.   While it is their best argument, it is weak.  The Pennsylvania court agreed using a lot of complicated legal analysis that can best be described as follows:  the parties are different so it is not derivative.

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