900K Settlement To Family In Nursing Home Death; New York Medical Malpractice Attorney Discusses

Recently, the nieces and nephews of a nun settled their case for their aunt’s death in Rockland County. The 90-year-old nun was living in a county run nursing home at the time of her death. A freestanding closet falling on top of her killed her. The family decided to settle the case because they did not want to go through a trial, as they would have had to display the images of their aunt to the jury. After the freestanding closet fell on the woman, she was found in her room with extensive injuries but still conscious and ultimately died at a local hospital with a fractured skull almost a week later.

The county, the furniture installation company and the manufacturing company will divide the settlement, with the county paying the largest share. The county is paying the largest share because they were aware that these freestanding closets had fallen before. Two times prior to this tragic incident the closets had fallen, each time the county had the fallen closets bolted to the wall. However, knowing that two of these closets have previously fallen, the county did not bolt all of them, only the ones that already fallen. It was this decision that likely lead to this sad incident.

This is a tragic and sad incident that likely could have been prevented. As I have previously written there are many things that go into placing a loved one in a nursing home including patient care. However, when something like this occurs it does not matter how much research you do about the nursing home and it is even more unfortunate because it is avoidable. If you have a loved one in a nursing home and something has occurred due to the what you think might be negligence please contact me for advice on how best to proceed because your loved ones deserve high quality care.

But what do you think? I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com . You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.