Falls are serious for everyone. They’re especially serious for nursing home residents. Victims over 75 account for 60 percent of all fatal fall incidents in Kentucky. Victims at understaffed nursing homes might lie on the floor for two or three minutes before someone finds them. That doesn’t sound like a long time, but in this situation, seconds count. Additionally, older people often have pre-existing medical conditions which make their injuries more severe. 
Moreover, older people frequently have gait disorders, vision problems, and other health issues that increase the risk of a fall. When people develop gait disorders, which are very common among older people, they shuffle their feet when they walk. As a result, when they start to lose their balance, they cannot recover and usually fall hard. Vision issues make it difficult to see wet spots, large cracks, and other fall hazards.
Kentucky law forbids insurance companies or other defendants from using a victim’s inherent vulnerabilities as an excuse to reduce or deny compensation. So, even if one of these conditions, or something else like it, contributed to the risk or injury severity, a Lexington personal injury lawyer can obtain maximum compensation for victims. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.
Why File a Claim?
Medicare often covers the medical bills in nursing home fall cases. Therefore, many people believe they shouldn’t file legal claims. The victim’s medical bills were paid and they don’t want to “blame” anyone for the “accident.”
A personal injury claim is fundamentally about responsibility. If negligence causes a fall, the nursing home owner must pay. If Medicare pays, you and I pay, in the form of higher taxes. That’s not right.
Additionally, there’s a difference between accidents and negligence. People accidentally leave the water running. They don’t accidentally ignore safety hazards.
Prima Facie Case
In a fall or other premises liability claim, negligence usually means a duty of care and a breach of care.
Nursing home residents pay to live at the facility. Therefore, they are invitees under Kentucky law. This same designation usually applies to most social guests.
Basically, invitees are people who have permission to be on the property and benefit the owner, financially or nonfinancially. Because of this close connection, owners have a duty of reasonable care towards invitees. Owners must not only ensure their property is safe. They must also immediately address any safety hazards that crop up.
The duty of care isn’t as high if the victim was a licensee (permission but no benefit) or trespasser (no benefit and no permission).
Knowledge of the hazard is a breach of the duty of care. A Lexington personal injury attorney must prove the owner knew, or should have known, about the injury-causing hazard,
Direct evidence of actual knowledge is usually best. Frequently, the owner ignores a text message or other hazard report. Attorneys usually obtain this evidence later in the trial process, during discovery. Owners hide such smoking guns as long as possible.
Circumstantial evidence of constructive knowledge (should have known) is admissible as well. If a floor tile cracks, owners should quickly find out about it, because of the aforementioned inspection requirement. The longer the owner does nothing, the easier it is to establish a breach of care.
Insurance Company Defenses
A prima facie case, by itself, isn’t enough to obtain maximum compensation. In fact, if the insurance company has strong legal defenses, it might not be enough to obtain any compensation at all. Lack of evidence and assumption of the risk may be the most common insurance company defenses in fall injury claims.
Frequently, nursing home residents fall in empty hallways. So, there’s no witness to testify about how they fell. Fortunately, Kentucky has a very broad res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself) rule. Basically, if the defendant controlled the property, there was a hazard, and negligence usually causes similar injuries, jurors may presume that negligence caused the victim’s injury.
Warning signs, like “Caution Wet Floor,” are the foundation of the assumption of the risk defense. Victims are legally responsible for their own injuries if they voluntarily assume a known risk. To refute this defense, attorneys often go back to the aforementioned pre-existing conditions, specifically vision issues. If victims cannot see hazards well, they cannot see signs well either. That’s especially true if the light wasn’t very bright at the time.
Injury victims are usually entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Lexington, contact the Goode Law Office, PLLC. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.The post Mapping Out a Nursing Home Fall Claim first appeared on Goode Law Office, PLLC.