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Nursing homes have reputations to maintain and finances to protect. Accordingly, the Kentucky nursing home responsible for your loved one’s injury or death may aggressively defend itself against your allegation of abuse or neglect. Keep reading to learn more about common nursing home abuse and neglect defenses our Kentucky nursing home injury lawyers see often.
Possible Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Defenses
Depending on the circumstances, you may hear one or more of the following from the nursing home administrators or attorneys:
- We’re sorry your parent got hurt, but it wasn’t our fault. The nursing home may acknowledge your loved one’s injury but maintain that the injury did not happen because of any neglect or abuse by nursing home staff. Unfortunately, accidents happen, and not every injury that occurs in a nursing home happens because of abuse or neglect. However, we encourage you not to take the nursing home at its word. Instead, let your lawyer investigate whether the nursing home’s negligence or abuse may have contributed to your parent’s injury.
- Your parent’s injury was because of a medical condition, not abuse or neglect. The nursing home may maintain that your loved one’s injury occurred because of an existing medical condition or advanced age. However, even if your parent’s medical condition or age was a factor in their injury, the nursing home may still be liable for neglect if the nursing home failed to recognize the danger and provide reasonable care to prevent the injury.
- We don’t know how your parent got hurt. In this situation, the nursing home may provide you with critical information without meaning to do so. A nursing home that provides reasonable care should know why someone got hurt or have procedures in place to find out why someone got hurt.
- We may have forgotten to document the care your parent received, but your parent was not neglected. In the absence of documentation, the nursing home should be prepared to prove that something happened. For example, if your loved one’s chart does not indicate that medication was provided and the nursing home maintains that the medication was provided, then the staff member who administered the medication should be prepared to provide details about how and when it was done.
- Your parent should never have been placed at our facility. The nursing home may argue that it was not prepared to take care of your loved one and that you should have chosen a different facility. However, since your loved one lived at the nursing home, the nursing home had a duty to provide reasonable care for your loved one. It’s essential to closely examine any warnings the nursing home provided you and the efforts the nursing home made to care for your loved one.
- We complied with all government regulations. A nursing home may follow all of the minimally required care regulations and still fail to provide a resident with appropriate care.
- The statute of limitations has run. Generally, you have just one year to file a Kentucky nursing home abuse or neglect personal injury lawsuit. If you fail to file a complaint in court before the statute of limitations expires, then the nursing home may raise the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense, and your case may be dismissed.
Additional defenses are possible depending on the unique circumstances of your case.
Our Kentucky Nursing Home Injury Lawyers Prepare for These Likely Defenses
After we file a formal complaint in court, the nursing home will file an answer that includes its affirmative defenses. Our experienced nursing home injury lawyers carefully review, investigate, and respond to these defenses so that our clients are prepared for successful nursing home claims.
Our Kentucky nursing home injury lawyers have written the book Fight Back Against Nursing Home Abuse: What Families Need to Know to Help Their Loved One. Together, we have more than 70 years of combined legal experience, and we have successfully represented hundreds of clients throughout Kentucky after they or loved ones were hurt by other people’s negligent or intentional actions.
Today, we are ready to talk to you about your potential nursing home abuse or neglect case. We will find out what happened to your loved one, and, if appropriate, we will hold the nursing home accountable for any abuse or neglect that caused your loved one’s injury.
Contact us today to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with our Kentucky nursing home injury lawyers. Let’s talk about what happened to your loved one, your legal options, and what it’s like to receive the personal attention the Gray and White legal team provides to all of our clients.
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