Frequently Asked Questions About Kentucky Personal Injury Lawsuits
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My loved one suffered a burn injury because her nursing home staff was negligent. What can she recover if she pursues a lawsuit? 
The exact amount that your loved one will recover will depend on many factors including, but not limited to: the extent of her injury, the quality of the evidence available to prove what caused her burn injury, and the legal arguments that she makes during the settlement process or in court. Given these variables, it would be impossible to tell you exactly how much your loved one will recover if she pursues a case, but we can tell you what types of damages she may be able to recover and how to find out what her specific compensation may include.Types of Damages in Nursing Home Negligence Cases
Your loved one may be able to recover compensation that includes:
- Healthcare costs. This includes all past, current, and future medical costs related to the burn injury. It includes, but is not limited to doctors’ appointments, hospitalizations, surgeries, and medications. It may also include medical costs associated with any secondary infections that were caused by the burn injury.
- Funeral costs. If your loved died from a burn injury, then funeral costs may be included in her recovery.
- Physical pain and emotional suffering. These may have been your loved one’s most significant damages, and they should be fully compensated in a nursing home neglect case.
- Other costs. If your loved one incurred any other costs, such as expenses related to changing nursing homes, then those costs may be included in her recovery.
Recovery of these damages will not be automatic, however. Instead, the nursing home, the nursing home’s insurer, and the nursing home’s legal team are likely to fight the allegations and to fight against your loved one’s fair recovery. Your loved one may lack the strength to fight back, but you can help her by learning what her case may be worth and how an experienced nursing home lawyer can help her.
How to Find Out What Your Loved One’s Case May Be Worth
Our nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers will review your loved one’s case and help you understand the potential value of her unique recovery. Call us or contact us via this website to schedule your free and confidential consultation today. Then, you and your loved one can make an informed decision about whether to move forward with a nursing home negligence claim.
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My infant suffered from meningitis. Is that a birth injury? Can my child make a legal recovery? 
It depends on how your child contracted meningitis. If your child has developed meningitis because a doctor, nurse, or hospital was negligent, then your child may have suffered a birth injury and may be able to make a legal recovery.Meningitis Is a Dangerous Condition
Meningitis is a virus or a bacterial infection that spreads to the membranes around the spinal cord and brain and causes inflammation. It is a very serious medical condition that can result in brain damage or death. While treatments are available, an accurate and prompt diagnosis of meningitis may be difficult in newborns.
The symptoms of infant meningitis include fever, sleepiness, and difficulty eating. These symptoms can also be signs of other more common conditions and doctors may be hesitant to perform a lumbar puncture or spinal tap to test for meningitis. Other symptoms, such as confusion and stiff neck may be difficult to ascertain in infants. Therefore, there can be a dangerous delay in diagnosing meningitis among newborns
But Infant Meningitis May Have Been Preventable
While there are many causes of meningitis, many cases of infant meningitis are caused by exposure to group B strep and E. coli. Pregnant women may have group B strep infections without any symptoms or knowledge that they have the infection. Accordingly, pregnant women should be tested—typically between the 35th and 37th week of pregnancy—to determine if they have group B strep. If the test is positive for group B strep, then the mother should be treated with antibiotics to decrease the risk of passing the infection to her child during birth.
The failure to test or to treat group B strep or the failure to diagnose an E. coli infection and watch for signs of meningitis in the newborn may result in a birth injury that could have been prevented with reasonable care and the doctor, or other medical provider, may be liable for damages resulting from the infant’s meningitis infection.
What To Do If Your Infant is Diagnosed With Meningitis
If your newborn has meningitis, then it is important to find out why and to take action to protect your child’s right to a fair recovery for any injuries that he has sustained.
You can take the first step by contacting our birth injury law firm for help. Our experienced staff nurse and birth injury attorneys will make sure that your child’s rights are protected. To learn more, please contact us any time—24/7/365—to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation. Additionally, you can learn more about birth injury cases in Kentucky by downloading our free guide, Family First: How to Get the Help You Need After a Birth Injury to Your Child Happens in Kentucky.
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Should I file a lawsuit if I have already filed a complaint against a Kentucky daycare? 
Yes. Complaints filed with the Kentucky Division of Regulated Child Care are important, but they won’t have the same outcome as a daycare abuse or negligence case that you file on behalf of your child who has been hurt.Possible Outcomes of a State Investigation
Kentucky regulations set forth the penalties that may be imposed on a daycare center that is found to have violated specific safety regulations. A child care center that is found to have violated a safety regulation will be issued a statement of deficiency that explains the violation. Daycare providers that are found to have committed a:
- Type A violation must correct the violation within five working days and are subject to a civil penalty of no more than $1,000 per violation.
- Type B violation must provide a written corrective action plan with 10 days and are subject to a civil penalty or no more than $250 for each occurrence.
Any civil penalties will be paid to the Kentucky State Treasurer and not directly to the children who were hurt.
Possible Outcomes of a Civil Lawsuit
While complaints are important and may result in dangerous violations being fixed, they will not result in your child’s fair compensation for any injuries that your child suffered. In order to get your child the recovery that he deserves for past, current, and future healthcare costs, out-of-pocket costs, pain, suffering, and other damages, you will need to pursue a civil lawsuit on behalf of your child.
Our experienced daycare injury lawyers can help you understand your legal options and take the necessary steps to protect your child’s future. We will make sure that complete investigation is done and that your child’s rights are protected whether or not the state has already investigated any allegations of wrongdoing.
To learn more, we encourage you to read our free report, A Parent’s Guide to Daycare Injury Cases: How to Obtain Justice When a Kentucky Facility Harms Your Child, and to contact us directly at any time to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.
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What should I do if my child suffers a brain injury at a Kentucky daycare? 
You sent your child to daycare and you expected to pick your child up without a life-changing injury. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. Your child has been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury because of something that happened while your child was in daycare, and it is up to you to take action during this traumatic time.What You Can Do to Help Your Child After a Brain Injury is Sustained at Daycare
Since your child is too young to take action alone, it is up to you as your child’s parent and protector to help your child recover for his significant injury. Specifically, it is up to you to:
- Get your child the necessary medical care. Immediate medical attention is important so that your child can receive a proper diagnosis and an appropriate treatment plan to prevent the injury from worsening.
- Find out how your child’s accident and resulting injury happened. You need to know how your child was hurt. Some brain injuries do happen from unavoidable accidents. However, others happen because of nursing home negligence or abuse. For example, a daycare may be negligent if staff let your child climb on a chair or unsafe playground equipment, and daycare abuse may have occurred if your child suffers a brain injury from shaken baby syndrome or because of other intentional actions of daycare staff members.
- Find out whether your child may be able to make a legal recovery. If the daycare or a staff member was negligent or abusive and that negligence or abuse resulted in your child’s brain injury, then your child has the right to recover legal damages for the injury that was suffered.
- Talk to daycare injury lawyer. Daycare injury cases can be hard to prove. You need information from the daycare and the daycare may be unwilling to provide it unless they are legally compelled to do so. An experienced lawyer can help you get the evidence that you need, negotiate with insurance companies, and go to court, if necessary, to protect your child’s fair recovery.
Unfortunately, your child is not alone. According to the Brain Injury Association of America, brain injuries cause about 2,685 deaths, 37,000 hospitalizations, and 435,000 emergency room visits for children age under age 14 annually.
If your baby has been hurt, then we encourage you to learn about your rights as soon as possible so that you can make the important decisions that will impact your child’s future. You can begin immediately by reading our free report, A Parent’s Guide to Daycare Injury Cases: How to Obtain Justice When a Kentucky Daycare Facility Harms Your Child, or by calling us anytime—24/7/365—to schedule a free consultation with an experienced and empathetic injury lawyer.
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My adult child is nonverbal and is residing in a nursing home. I think he’s been abused. What should I do? You ask an important question, because you need to take action immediately to protect your loved one and potentially other people who are being hurt in that nursing home.
If your loved one is in immediate danger, then you should call 911 and remain with your loved one, if possible.
Many forms of nursing home abuse or neglect, however, happen over time. For example, your loved one may be suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, or repeated verbal abuse. In these situations it is also important to take action quickly. In addition to finding another nursing home or living arrangement for your loved one as soon as possible, you might also want to take formal action.
Here’s What You Can Do If a Loved One With a Disability Is Being Abused or Neglected in a Kentucky Nursing Home
You can take formal actions, which include:
- Filing a complaint with Adult Protective Services. You can begin by calling the Adult Abuse Hot Line or contacting the agency through its website. Your complaint may be investigated by the state.
- Contacting the Kentucky Long-Term Care Ombudsman. It’s the ombudsman’s job to advocate for nursing home residents and others in long term care facilities. Investigating and resolving allegations of abuse and neglect is part of the ombudsman’s job responsibilities.
- Filing a nursing home abuse or neglect lawsuit in a Kentucky court. If your loved one was neglected or abused in a nursing home then the law was broken. Your loved one may have the right to recover damages in a civil lawsuit. If you are your loved one’s legal guardian, then you may have the right to file a lawsuit on behalf of your loved one.
There are pros and cons to each of these options, and it is important to do what is in the best interests of your loved one. To find out more about what specific actions you should take to help your loved one, please contact our experienced nursing home abuse lawyers today. We will review your claim with you, advise you of your loved one’s rights, and work with you to make sure that your loved one is safe and protected. Contact us any time—24 hours a day—to schedule your free consultation.
- Filing a complaint with Adult Protective Services. You can begin by calling the Adult Abuse Hot Line or contacting the agency through its website. Your complaint may be investigated by the state.
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Can a midwife be legally responsible for a birth injury in Kentucky? 
Yes, if a midwife is negligent, then the midwife may be liable for any birth injuries that result from her negligence.Most midwives in the United States are certified nurse midwives. Certified nurse midwives are licensed. They are independent medical providers, and they can prescribe medications. Many nurse midwives not only attend births, but also provide reproductive care and primary care medical services.
In 2014, the most recent year for which complete data is available, midwives attended to more than 332,000 births in the United States. More than 94% of these births happened in hospitals, with the rest occurring in freestanding birthing centers or in private homes.
Many women who choose midwives to help them with prenatal care, labor, and delivery do so because midwives tend to spend a longer amount of time with women at each appointment. Some expectant mothers also believe that midwives are more likely to respect their wishes regarding labor and delivery and to avoid unnecessary interventions.
But What Happens If Something Goes Wrong?
A midwife will be liable for any birth injuries that results from the midwife’s negligence. Midwives owe a duty to care to mothers and babies just as doctors, other nurses, and hospitals owe duties of care to mothers and babies. Thus, midwives —like doctors, other nurses, and hospitals —may be liable for any birth injuries that result from negligence.
More specifically, midwives will be liable for birth injuries if:
- They owe the mother or baby a duty of care.
- They breach that duty of care by failing to act like a reasonable midwife would act in a similar situation.
- That breach of the duty of care causes injury to the baby. In other words, the baby would not have suffered the birth injury but for the midwife’s actions or inactions.
- The injured party has the legal right to recover damages.
If your child has been hurt by a midwife’s negligence, then it is important to find out exactly what happened so that you can protect your child’s rights. Our experienced birth injury lawyers and our staff nurse can investigate to find out if the midwife was negligent and we can hold the midwife accountable for any injuries that result. This may include a significant recovery for your child for the injuries that your baby has already suffered and for the injuries that your baby may continue to suffer. To learn more, please contact us at any time —day or night, 365 days a year—to set up a free meeting with us and to learn more about how you can protect your child’s rights.
- They owe the mother or baby a duty of care.
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Who is legally responsible for my child’s injuries if my child was bitten by a dog on a daycare playground? 
In Kentucky, dog owners are liable for any injury caused by their dogs. Therefore, the dog owner could be liable for the dog bite that your child suffered on a daycare playground. This may be the case whether a parent brought a dog along to pick up a child from daycare or whether a neighborhood dog got loose and ended up on the daycare’s playground.The Daycare May Also Bear Some Responsibility
In some cases, the daycare may also be liable for a dog bite injury that occurred on its property. For example, if daycare staff knew (or should have known) that the dog was there and could be a risk to the children, if the daycare facility has policies against dogs on its property and violated those policies, or if the playground lacked fencing and a dog wandered onto the property, then the daycare could be legally responsible for your child’s injuries.
It’s Up to You to Protect Your Child’s Rights
Neither the dog owner nor the daycare is likely to admit being at fault, and neither party is likely to offer a fair settlement for all of your child’s current and future damages. Accordingly, it is up to you to make sure that a thorough investigation is done so that all of the potential defendants can be identified and held accountable for your child’s injuries.
Our daycare injury lawyers will gather all of the evidence to determine how best to protect your child’s rights. Then, we will fight hard to get your child a fair financial recovery that includes medical expenses, out-of-pocket costs, compensation for physical pain and emotional suffering, and any other damages that are allowed by law.
To learn more about what you can do to protect your child’s full and fair recovery after a dog bite on a daycare playground, please contact us any time via this website or by phone to schedule a free and confidential consultation with an experienced lawyer.
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How often should a doctor visit a resident in a nursing home? Every nursing home resident in Kentucky is supposed to be under the supervision of a physician, but how this supervision works may be different for each individual resident.
Kentucky nursing home regulations establish minimum standards of physician care that must be provided for each nursing home resident. It is the doctor’s job to evaluate the resident’s current and long-term needs and to prescribe a “planned regimen of medical care.” This planned regimen should include medications, treatments, rehabilitation services, special dietary modifications, special procedures recommended to maintain the health or safety of the patient, activities, and plans for continuing care and discharge.
When a Doctor Should See a Resident
A doctor should see a resident any time that a medical need arises or a health concern is reported. While state regulations can’t predict when a medical need or health concern will occur, the regulations do provide for a minimum number of physician visits regardless of medical need. Specifically, every nursing home resident should be evaluated by a doctor:
- At least once every 30 days for the first 60 days following admission to the nursing home.
- Every 60 days following the first 60 days of admission unless justified and documented by the attending doctor in the resident’s medical record.
This is the minimum amount that is required by regulation, but it does not prevent a doctor from seeing a resident more often.
If the doctor is absent, then arrangements must be made for each resident’s medical care while the doctor is unavailable. The nursing home is required to have arrangements with at least one other doctor who can provide medical care in an emergency if a resident’s regular physician is not immediately available. This list of alternative doctor(s) must be kept at each nursing station.
The Failure to Provide Physician Services May Be Relevant in a Nursing Home Negligence or Abuse Case
Without proper medical care, a nursing home resident may suffer significant and unnecessary injuries. If your loved one has been hurt by a lack of medical care or has died in her nursing home, then it is important to find out exactly what happened and to hold the right people accountable for your loved one’s injury or death. Our experienced nursing home injury lawyers can help you do that. Please contact us at any time —day or night, all year long—to find out more or to schedule a free, initial consultation.
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Who are the potential defendants in a delayed C-section case? 
If your baby was hurt because your Caesarean section (C-section) was delayed, you may be able to file a birth injury case and your baby may be able to recover damages for the injuries that were suffered. However, before your baby can make such a recovery, you have to know exactly why the C-section was delayed and who is legally responsible.The Defendants Are Not the Same in Every Case
Instead, the person or facility that should be named as a defendant in your case depends on why your C-section was delayed. Depending on the facts of your case, the defendant(s) may include:
- Nurses. If nurses fail to check on a laboring mom frequently enough, fail to identify a baby (or mother) in distress, or fail to notify a doctor of any concerns in a timely manner, they may be negligent.
- Doctors. If doctors fail to diagnose a medical emergency or fail to promptly treat the medical emergency, they may be negligent.
- Hospitals. If hospitals fail to have operating rooms, staff, medications, or other necessary provisions ready for emergency C-sections, they may be negligent.
More than one defendant may be named in your lawsuit if more than one person or facility was legally responsible for your delayed C-section and your baby’s injuries.
Get the Evidence You Need Before You File a Case
If you file a case against someone who is not legally responsible for what happened to your child, you can expect the defendant you name to file a motion to dismiss with the court. The court will likely grant the motion and dismiss your case without awarding any recovery to your child.
This problem can be prevented, however, if you gather evidence to prove who is liable for your child’s injuries. Our experienced birth injury lawyers and law firm nurse can ask the right questions and review the right documents to get the evidence you need to identify the right defendants and begin your claim. For more information, please call us or contact us via this website today to schedule your free, no-obligation consultation.
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My child was hurt by a specific staff member at daycare. Is the daycare responsible for my child’s injuries? In all cases, your child’s injuries are tragic and should never have happened. However, who is liable for your child’s injuries depends on the unique facts surrounding how he got hurt. It is important to make sure that a full investigation is done so that you can hold the responsible party (or parties) accountable and so that you can get your child the full and fair recovery that he deserves.
Our experienced attorneys are committed to completing a full investigation for each of our clients. Our team will get all of your questions answered, get a full understanding of what happened to your child, and determine who should be held responsible for your child’s injuries. Then, we will use that information to make sure that your child recovers for his past, current, and future medical expenses, lost income, out-of-pocket costs, pain, suffering and other damages.
So Who Is Responsible?
In the situation that you describe, the daycare may be responsible if the daycare:
- Did not provide the required training for the staff member and the lack of training contributed to your child’s injury.
- Was understaffed at the time of your child’s injury.
- Did not provide sufficient supervision for staff members.
- Failed to conduct the required background checks prior to hiring the staff member.
- Maintained an unsafe facility that contributed to your child’s injury.
Additionally, the individual staff member may be responsible if she acted criminally or if she acted outside the scope of her employment.
Don’t Contact the Daycare Directly
Instead, let our experienced lawyers do it on behalf of your family so that you can be confident that all of your questions will be answered and that all applicable evidence will be maintained.
Please contact us today for a free consultation about your child’s rights and please know that we will not charge you an hourly fee for our services. Instead, we will not get paid unless your child makes a financial recovery. Let us help you through this difficult time and, together, we will help your child recover damages from the parties that caused his injuries.