It would be a medical malpractice attorney. But not to be harsh, you imho have to - Have To - realize that for a responsible attorney to be at all interested in taking a case, there needs to be reasonable expectation of compensation from the filing of a lawsuit.
And that means the incident was a wrongful death of a working age adult with dependents. Really to get any sort of payout for both the attorney and the family, you need to have the deceased have their young kids in the courtroom with a bereft pregnant widow with a huge mortgage. Actuarial tables have lifespan in the US at mid 70’s and these are used to affix future worth for lawsuits. LSS if over 75 zero. That is the reality.
You are bereaved and going through the emotions a death can leave you with. If your elder was on hospice, as a Medicare paid benefit of hospice, it will pay for grief counseling for family members who were POA or had been a caregiver. If so, please consider this.
Your mother had dementia , people with dementia fall all the time . It is a good night when you work in a facility and nobody falls . Short of restraining people to beds , which they no longer do , falls will happen . Go to a personal injury lawyer . If you’re lucky the nursing home may give alittle to you to make it go away . A defense lawyer can argue that Mom had other reasons like dementia etc that could have made her fall , like bad balance .
I’ll give you an example of how a defense attorney used a preexisting condition to win a case. My husband was hit by a car while standing still on line along the side of a building . It resulted in surgery and permanent nerve damage and pain in his dominant arm and hand . It affects him everyday including at work . The driver admitted to hitting my husband . The driver’s car insurance company did not want to pay for the out of pocket medical costs that my husband paid for , or damages for permanent pain and loss in dexterity .
The defense attorney for the car insurance company hired some retired 80 year old orthopedic surgeon to say that my husbands pain is not from the accident . He said it was neuropathy due to my husbands Type 2 diabetes . My husband never had any pain or neuropathy anywhere before this accident . 10 years later he still has the pain etc from this accident and no neuropathy anywhere and his diabetes is well controlled.
The jury decided that it was not proven that my husbands pain was due to the accident . The jury ( in civil court ) awarded ZERO dollars . They didn’t even give money to cover the copay’s and deductibles we payed for the surgery needed from the accident , even though the driver admitted to hitting him . That defense lawyer argued that perhaps my husband had pain before the accident , and now is blaming it on the accident so he could profit. He basically called my husband a liar . I hate lawyers .
So go ahead , try your case , but be prepared to be treated like a piece of Sh*t , by a lawyer , because you have no proof how your mother fell . And if your mother died in a conservative area , forget it .
My husband’s lawyer says that is why my husband lost his case . The accident happened in a very conservative area , so that is where he had to try the case. ( Instead of where we live ). He said that insurance companies and conservative lawyers and judges brainwash people that their insurance rates will go up if they award damages ( money ) in car accident cases . The juries in these areas look for any reason not to award money even to cover medical costs . Which happened to my husband as well .
Our lawyer said had the accident happened in a non conservative area , the insurance company would have settled out of court and offered a monetary settlement to avoid going to court and letting a jury decide the amount to award.
My mother fell 50x in AL and 45x in Memory Care Assisted Living because she forgot she couldn't walk and also refused to call for help to the bathroom. In regular AL, it was refusal to use her walker and paying NO attention to where she was going. It wasn't the AL or MCs fault, it was old age and dementias fault!
Elders often lose their balance. Did she fall due to weakness in her legs? Did she have vasovagal syncope, which is not uncommon in elderly? (My MIL sometimes gets this when she goes to the bathroom at her LTC facility, and it causes her to become light-headed or faint for a very brief period of time.
Your other post said she fell "early in the morning" and had to yell for help for 20 minutes so obviously there were no witnesses to see what actually happened.
Unless there is video evidence of the incident, or a reliable witness I personally doubt you have a case. You can bring it to a personal injury attorney (aka "ambulance chaser") to assess your evidence to see if you have a winnable case. If you lose, you may have to not only pay your attorney but also the defendant's attorney fees.
I wish you comfort and peace in your heart as you mourn her loss.
All falls are ‘preventable’ if you are in an iron lung. The question for litigation is different – was the overall care adequate in terms of the contract? 'The fall led to her death' is not the same as 'caused her death' - and if you can't get your head around that, you are going to have a lot of problems with lawyers. Your (not her) damages are probably on the shaky side, too. Or were you more concerned with 'vengeance'?
She fell in memory care overnight by doing something that elderly try to do. MCs do not have room cameras. She did not call for help in your previous post. You think that 20 or so minutes relapsing before calling 911 was too long? Not if she was communcating to staff when they found her. So not necessarily because brain bleeds and strokes allow for more treatment time in the hospital and you do not mention how long it took to find the brain bleed. Falls happen and this could have happened at home.
There's no such thing as a preventable fall with someone who needs to be in memory care. Old people with dementia fall. They fall all over the place. It's awful. The only good thing about it is if they were destined for a life bedridden, their teeth turned brown, their limbs contracted so they are in embryo position, double incontinent, unable to eat solids and their head lolling to the side if put into a sitting position, a fall would have taken them out of their misery before it came to that. The person I've described is my once-beautiful mother, who died of dementia at age 95. She was like that for years. If a fall had taken her out before she got to that point, I would have been dancing and singing with joy.
Don't expect 'justice" in a case like this. You tie yourself up for a couple of years, deal with depositions, mediation, interrogatories, egotistic lawyers on both sides, phone calls, letters, court dates, and on and on. Your stress will increase. You won't get your mother back. And since facilities have teams of lawyers who deal with this every day, you'll be just another case that gets handled forthwith.
My sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. But know that there are worse things to die of than a fall in memory care.
There are commercials all over the television and radio for law firms that "specialize" in this type of law suit. Google is your friend do a search for your area. Just keep in mind that a suit like this can take years. You will probably only get 1/3 of what they say the suit is "worth"
And that means the incident was a wrongful death of a working age adult with dependents. Really to get any sort of payout for both the attorney and the family, you need to have the deceased have their young kids in the courtroom with a bereft pregnant widow with a huge mortgage. Actuarial tables have lifespan in the US at mid 70’s and these are used to affix future worth for lawsuits. LSS if over 75 zero. That is the reality.
You are bereaved and going through the emotions a death can leave you with. If your elder was on hospice, as a Medicare paid benefit of hospice, it will pay for grief counseling for family members who were POA or had been a caregiver. If so, please consider this.
People can fall with bare feet, improper shoes or correct footwear.
Can fall when not holding anything, when using their walking aid improperly or when correctly using rails or their walking aid.
Can fall when alone. Can fall when supervisied or when assisted.
Legs give way, muscle weakness.
Feint, dizzy, confused, hallucinate.
Unable to see well, poor depty perception, poor spacial skills.
Sometimes the HIP BONE BREAKS because the bone is thin which CAUSES the fall.
Dementia causes brain changes which destroys ability to balance.
Grip socks will NOT prevent the myriad of reasons an elderly person falls.
Grief will bring denial. Anger. This is understandable but your anger here may be misplaced.
Hopefully in time: Acceptance.
Wishing you future peace.
Stop the presses!
You may as well sue the sun for setting and making it dark.
They take on the cases they think they can win .
Sorry for your loss .
Try calling one of the personal injury or wrongful death attorneys you see on billboards or late night television ads. That would be your best bet.
Good luck to you.
A defense lawyer can argue that Mom had other reasons like dementia etc that could have made her fall , like bad balance .
I’ll give you an example of how a defense attorney used a preexisting condition to win a case. My husband was hit by a car while standing still on line along the side of a building . It resulted in surgery and permanent nerve damage and pain in his dominant arm and hand . It affects him everyday including at work . The driver admitted to hitting my husband . The driver’s car insurance company did not want to pay for the out of pocket medical costs that my husband paid for , or damages for permanent pain and loss in dexterity .
The defense attorney for the car insurance company hired some retired 80 year old orthopedic surgeon to say that my husbands pain is not from the accident . He said it was neuropathy due to my husbands Type 2 diabetes . My husband never had any pain or neuropathy anywhere before this accident . 10 years later he still has the pain etc from this accident and no neuropathy anywhere and his diabetes is well controlled.
The jury decided that it was not proven that my husbands pain was due to the accident . The jury ( in civil court ) awarded ZERO dollars . They didn’t even give money to cover the copay’s and deductibles we payed for the surgery needed from the accident , even though the driver admitted to hitting him .
That defense lawyer argued that perhaps my husband had pain before the accident , and now is blaming it on the accident so he could profit. He basically called my husband a liar . I hate lawyers .
So go ahead , try your case , but be prepared to be treated like a piece of Sh*t , by a lawyer , because you have no proof how your mother fell . And if your mother died in a conservative area , forget it .
My husband’s lawyer says that is why my husband lost his case . The accident happened in a very conservative area , so that is where he had to try the case. ( Instead of where we live ). He said that insurance companies and conservative lawyers and judges brainwash people that their insurance rates will go up if they award damages ( money ) in car accident cases . The juries in these areas look for any reason not to award money even to cover medical costs . Which happened to my husband as well .
Our lawyer said had the accident happened in a non conservative area , the insurance company would have settled out of court and offered a monetary settlement to avoid going to court and letting a jury decide the amount to award.
I read your other infro and I see no legal recourse.
If you have money to burn for a Nuisance suit then go for it. You have a 10% chance of winning and I am being generous.
With a dementia affected person there is no such thing as a preventable fall.
Elders often lose their balance. Did she fall due to weakness in her legs? Did she have vasovagal syncope, which is not uncommon in elderly? (My MIL sometimes gets this when she goes to the bathroom at her LTC facility, and it causes her to become light-headed or faint for a very brief period of time.
Your other post said she fell "early in the morning" and had to yell for help for 20 minutes so obviously there were no witnesses to see what actually happened.
Unless there is video evidence of the incident, or a reliable witness I personally doubt you have a case. You can bring it to a personal injury attorney (aka "ambulance chaser") to assess your evidence to see if you have a winnable case. If you lose, you may have to not only pay your attorney but also the defendant's attorney fees.
I wish you comfort and peace in your heart as you mourn her loss.
Falls happen and this could have happened at home.
Don't expect 'justice" in a case like this. You tie yourself up for a couple of years, deal with depositions, mediation, interrogatories, egotistic lawyers on both sides, phone calls, letters, court dates, and on and on. Your stress will increase. You won't get your mother back. And since facilities have teams of lawyers who deal with this every day, you'll be just another case that gets handled forthwith.
My sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. But know that there are worse things to die of than a fall in memory care.
Google is your friend do a search for your area.
Just keep in mind that a suit like this can take years. You will probably only get 1/3 of what they say the suit is "worth"