When you place your elderly family member in a nursing home, you’re putting a large amount of trust in the establishment and its staff to care for and respect them. When that trust is broken in the form of nursing home abuse—which occurs when a resident suffers harm or neglect—it can lead to serious illness, severe injury, psychological damage, and even death.
If you’re thinking about taking legal action against nursing home abuse, it’s reasonable to consider how much your case might be worth. Unfortunately, there’s no concrete answer. The amount of compensation you’ll glean after your nursing home abuse case depends on a number of factors, including the cost of the economic and punitive damages, the strength of a plaintiff’s argument, how much the defendant can reasonably pay, and what juries have awarded plaintiffs in similar cases.
While each nursing home abuse case contains a set of factors that make it unique, there are few elements of your case that you can point to as you try to determine its worth. A trusted nursing home attorney will best be able to provide you with an estimated value for your case.
What Factors Determine How Much Your Nursing Home Abuse Case Is Worth?
If you trusted a nursing home and its staff to care for your loved one and you now suspect abuse, you are not alone. Nursing home abuse and negligence cases are growing in the United States, perhaps because nursing home residents are an exceptionally vulnerable group who may suffer from mental and physical ailments. While it’s difficult to determine the exact number of nursing home patients who have suffered from abuse, a comprehensive article published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that approximately 10% of patients face some sort of abuse, including physical, psychological, verbal, and sexual trauma.
Understanding the factors that determine how much your nursing home abuse case is worth may be helpful. Here are a few to keep in mind:
The Severity and Type of Injury
Did your loved one die due to nursing home negligence? Did they suffer injuries from a fall or from bedsores? The severity and type of injuries they suffered have a direct impact on the medical expenses required to treat the injury and thus the value of the case. Ultimately, the court makes this determination depending on past and future medical expenses that encompass the costs of hospitalization, revision surgeries, rehabilitation, prescription medication, and doctors’ visits.
Level of Pain and Suffering
These types of non-economic damages—which include emotional distress, psychological abuse, anxiety, fear, PTSD, and mental scarring—are harder to determine and depend largely on a lawyer’s research, experience, and assessment of the case as well as the verdict of a third-party expert.
Punitive Damages
You can pursue punitive damages if the responsible party acted with the express intention of causing harm or if there was negligence involved. This money may be included to punish the defendants for intentionally harmful or careless behavior and to discourage others from committing similar acts.
The Evidence Available
Evidence is critical to proving your loved one’s case. Without demonstrating that something happened, judges cannot lawfully order opposing parties to compensate victims for damages. A nursing home abuse lawyer will work toward meeting your burden of proof as you pursue compensation.
Here are some other quick facts about case values:
- The average nursing home abuse case recovers $406,000 in damages per claim, according to a Health Affairs report.
- Wrongful death cases have some of the highest nursing home abuse values.
- Settlements tend to have less value than trial verdicts, though their case values may still range in the millions.
- While state-by-state rules vary, New York doesn’t put a cap on economic or non-economic damages.
When abuse and neglect does occur, it’s important to contact a lawyer who can help you collect the compensation you deserve from the at-fault party.
Call an Expert Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer in New York City
If you believe that a member of your family is caught up in a harmful or neglectful situation, contact the trusted attorneys at Dalli & Marino, LLP. We’re a group of experienced lawyers who understand New York–specific regulations and government healthcare. Our team of highly skilled trial attorneys will best be able to help you determine how much compensation you may be awarded based on the circumstances of your case.
At Dalli & Marino, LLP, our verdicts and settlements have recovered millions of dollars for our clients since 1996. We approach each case on an individual basis and serve to help you or your loved one recover the money you need to compensate for your injury or illness. Give us a call at 888-465-8790 or complete our contact form today.
