California Catastrophic Injury Lawyers Handling Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse
No one really knows how many of our vulnerable elderly and dependent adults are being neglected, abused or exploited because such actions are easily hidden from view and underreported.
What is clear is that abusers can be acute care hospitals, caregivers, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, home health care agencies, and that the frequency of nursing home and elder abuse will undoubtedly increase over the next several decades, as the population ages.
Intentional or neglectful actions and the failure to act so that an elderly person (or an adult who is unable to care for him/herself), is hurt by a caregiver or any medical professional who has a trust relationship with the elder, may be “elder abuse.”
Sadly, elder abuse is so common in nursing homes that nursing homes and elder abuse have become synonymous. While less frequent, it is no less tragic when a dependent adult suffers harm due to neglect or abuse by an acute care facility that is supposed to provide medical care. If you or someone you love has been affected by elder or dependent care abuse, it is vital to have a lawyer to fight for you and rectify the wrong. When elder abuse or neglect results in death, surviving family members may have grounds for both an elder abuse claim and a wrongful death lawsuit — Heimberg Barr LLP regularly handles cases involving both.
The experienced lawyers at Heimberg Barr LLP have successfully represented elder abuse victims against not only the traditional care givers such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities but also against hospitals, and have recovered millions of dollars for our clients. If you or a loved one has suffered from elder abuse, contact our law firm Heimberg-Barr, LLP.
Our Results
By Dr Steven Heimberg
$68,035,482
The largest verdict in California history for a client who was denied proper care after cardiac surgery because his surgeon prematurely left the OR.
$17,000,000
$14,640,784
A verdict for an injured man and his wife against a fitness center for failure to perform CPR leading to brain damage.
$9,000,000
Who does EADACPA protect?
Common types of elder and dependent adult abuse
Reasons to file a case
You or your loved one not only deserves to be compensated for your or their pain and suffering and the loss of enjoyment of life, but, most importantly, you or they deserve to be free from abuse and any new financial hardships you or they encounter. You or your loved one may have mounting medical bills or need to hire help to assist with care. Payment for your or a family member’s injuries or for the unnecessary death of a loved one is often critical to your and your family’s future.
Yet, in most cases, you or your loved one will face an army of lawyers, an entire department at an insurance company, and the resources of a mega-corporation fighting against you to avoid providing you the money you desperately need. In other words, their whole focus is to avoid claims or to settle with you for the least amount of money possible.
Having experienced, effective counsel on your side such as an expert elder abuse attorney at Los Angeles law firm Heimberg Barr to review the facts of your claim as quickly as possible is your best defense.
If you or someone you care about has suffered catastrophic harm due to elder and dependent adult abuse, elder abuse lawyers from Heimberg Barr LLP will represent you throughout the process of pursuing your claim. With a thorough understanding of both the medical evidence and the legal issues, the Heimberg Barr LLP team will aggressively represent you against those who neglected and/or abused you or your loved one.
The L.A. malpractice attorneys of Heimberg Barr LLP, named #1 Medical Malpractice firm by The National Law Journal and distinguished as Top Tier in both Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice by Best Lawyers and US News and World Reports, have worked exclusively on behalf of injury victims for decades. Dr. Steven Heimberg is a physician with peerless accomplishments as an advocate of injury victims. Among other honors, he has been named the Los Angeles Trial Attorney of the Year, Lawyer of the Year in 2017 by Best Lawyers and The Wall Street Journal, Top 100 California Trial Lawyers for 10 consecutive years, and Top 100 Southern California Super Lawyers for 9 consecutive years.
Dr. Steve Heimberg possess the critical skills to decipher the complex records and accurately assess the damages done to you and your family, to ensure the most appropriate and just award. More importantly, is that he knows how to explain these damages to a jury in language that is clear and easy to understand. When you and your family have suffered catastrophic injuries because of elder and dependent adult abuse, Heimberg Barr LLP can help.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is elder abuse?
Elder abuse is more than mere negligence; it is the abandonment or failure to provide the basic custodial care that people who cannot care for themselves depend on.
Examples are stark: a patient not turned and left to develop pressure sores to the bone, someone left in their own waste until infections set in, or a resident simply not fed - in short, being ignored into serious harm.
Emotional, financial and sexual abuse also occur in care settings, the last far more often than most families realize.
What are the types of elder abuse?
The recognized types are physical abuse and custodial neglect, emotional or psychological abuse, financial exploitation (scammers heavily target the elderly), and sexual abuse - along with self-neglect and abandonment.
Neglect that causes real physical harm is the classic basis for an elder-abuse claim against a facility.
Can I sue a nursing home for abuse?
Yes - and nursing homes are the most common targets, because so many facilities are poorly run.
The complication is MICRA: board-and-care and group homes are not “health-care providers” under MICRA, but nursing homes are, so a facility may try to reframe abuse or neglect as ordinary professional negligence to claim the cap.
Getting the case properly characterized - and outside MICRA - is the central fight.
A key requirement in facility cases is “ratification”: you usually must show that management, not just a rogue employee, was responsible.
Being shuffled from manager to manager can itself help demonstrate ratification from the top.
What signs indicate elder abuse?
Any short-term deterioration matters.
Check whether your loved one can turn, is being fed regularly, is losing weight, has bad odors or signs of infection, sits in unclean surroundings, or shows signs of trauma - and do not rely on the records, which are often falsified.
The best protection is to visit regularly, build relationships with specific caregivers, and keep a family “team” comparing notes, since isolated residents are the most vulnerable.
What damages can be recovered?
Victims can recover economic and non-economic damages, and - importantly - punitive damages (also available in ordinary malpractice, but harder to obtain).
Elder-abuse emotional damages are not limited by MICRA in some circumstances and can allow double the MICRA limit in others, which makes proper characterization of the case especially valuable.