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Nursing home abuse often goes unreported due to the patient’s mental health and vulnerability. It can be difficult to detect abuse or neglect because family members are not present 24 hours a day. It also can be difficult to prove allegations of abuse because the nursing home resident may be unable to testify due to mental health issues such as dementia, or because the resident is no longer alive. That being said, there are laws that protect the rights of residents in order to protect them from cases of abuse or neglect, and anyone suspecting a loved one is being abused in an Illinois nursing home should consult with a dedicated personal injury attorney.

Protections for Nursing Home Residents

There are different statutes and regulations that protect the rights of senior citizens and nursing home residents. A central statute in Illinois is the Nursing Home Care Act (NHCA). The Act establishes a resident’s “bill of rights” and creates a system to resolve claims under the Act. Under the NHCA, nursing homes are liable to residents for any intentional or negligent act or omission that causes an injury to a resident. Neglect is defined as a facility’s failure to provide adequate medical care, mental health treatment, psychiatric rehabilitation, personal care, or assistance with activities of daily living necessary to avoid physical harm, mental anguish, or mental illness for a resident.

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On February 22 of this year, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that may greatly affect nursing home care in this country. According to one news source, the case considers the legality of arbitration agreements signed by representatives of nursing home residents.

In that case, two nursing home residents died in nursing homes. Their families filed lawsuits against the nursing homes after their deaths, but the nursing homes tried to force the families into arbitration under signed arbitration agreements. The Kentucky Supreme Court previously ruled that nursing home residents had not explicitly allowed their representatives to enter into arbitration agreements, and these agreements were not binding as a result.

The nursing homes in the case argue that states cannot place more of a burden on the creation of arbitration agreements than they would on creating any other contract. Long-term care providers contend the decision “poses a substantial threat to the long-term care industry at a time when demographic trends dictate that provision of long-term care could become increasingly important.” They say the Federal Arbitration Act and federal policy that favors arbitration preempt state laws like Kentucky’s. They argue the FAA was intended to make arbitration agreements equally as enforceable as any other contract, unless there are grounds that invalidate them just as in any other contract.

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Intuitive Surgical, the company who developed and markets the da Vinci surgical robot, is facing another lawsuit challenging the sufficiency of the warnings that the manufacturer provided with the device. Recently, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff could proceed with a product liability lawsuit on behalf of her deceased husband against Intuitive Surgical. In his complaint, the plaintiff alleged that he suffered serious physical injuries during a prostatectomy using the da Vinci surgical device. According to the plaintiff’s allegations, the physician who performed the surgery noticed during the procedure that the plaintiff’s rectal wall had suffered lacerations. As a result of this complication, the physician had to perform immediate open surgery to repair the lacerations.

Following the surgery, the husband reported experiencing a serious reduction in his quality of life. During ventilation, the husband experienced respiratory failure requiring ventilation, renal failure, and an infection. The husband’s complaint also alleged that he was required to wear a colostomy bag and that he also experienced incontinence. The complaint also alleged neuromuscular damage and that the husband was unable to work correctly without assistance. Roughly four years after the procedure, the husband died. According to a physician who testified on behalf of the plaintiff, the da Vinci robot’s malfunction was a contributing factor in the husband’s death.

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Johnson & Johnson was named as a defendant in a recently filed product liability lawsuit involving its silicone breast implant product. The action, which was filed in state court in California, alleges that the plaintiff suffered severe injuries as a result of receiving the company’s silicone breast implants. The plaintiff’s alleged injuries include severe muscle pain, nausea, and more.

In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of silicone in breast implants. The agency prohibited their use based on research suggesting that they cause health problems like rheumatoid arthritis. The primary manufacturer of silicone implants faced so many lawsuits at the time that it eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The FDA ultimately required the company to pay a total of $3.2 billion in damages to implant recipients. In 2006, the agency lifted this ban, and Johnson & Johnson became the first company to offer a silicone-based implant product in the years that followed.

The lawsuit is seeking damages based on Johnson & Johnson’s alleged failure to provide sufficient warnings to the plaintiff about the potential side effects and safety of the implants. The plaintiff contended that the silicone implants are prone to leaking, which can cause a host of physical injuries and ailments.

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In a recent case, a federal appeals court found in favor of an Illinois man who alleged his ladder was defectively designed. The man fell off his ladder while he was replacing the screws on his gutter and suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of the accident. He later suffered from seizures, dementia, and quadriplegia.

After the accident, he brought a lawsuit against the ladder’s manufacturer, claiming that the ladder was defectively designed and that the defective design had caused the ladder to collapse. He argued the company did not design the ladder to accommodate the weight of people at or near 200 pounds. He weighed 224 pounds shortly before the accident.

The case went to trial, and the jury found in the man’s favor. The jury awarded him over $11 million in damages. Afterwards, the manufacturer argued it was entitled to a new trial. It contended that the man did not present sufficient evidence that the manufacturer had defectively designed the ladder.

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In a personal injury claim, a plaintiff has to prove not just liability but the extent of the damages. This means the plaintiff may need to establish the nature of the injuries, the expected duration of the injuries, how the injuries may have aggravated a pre-existing condition, disfigurement, disability, pain and suffering, emotional distress, necessary medical expenses, lost wages, care-taking expenses, and any shortened life expectancy.

Jury Awards $15 Million in Damages to Student After Crash

A tragic car accident in 2015 resulted in the death of five Georgia nursing students. A jury recently awarded the lone survivor $15 million. According to the a news report, a truck driver had been driving 70 miles per hour down a highway and failed to slow down or stop for traffic, causing him to crash into several cars. The truck driver’s truck drove over the top of a Toyota Corolla and crashed into a Ford Escape that was carrying the students. The students had been on their way to their last day of clinical rotations at a nearby hospital. The survivor brought a lawsuit against the truck driver’s trucking company.

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Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant device, has asked a federal judge to issue an order granting new trials after juries returned a total of $1 billion in judgments to six total plaintiffs. Each of these plaintiffs sued the medical device maker, alleging that the Pinnacle hip implant device failed to include proper warnings about its potential side effects and that it was designed in an unreasonably defective manner. These plaintiffs alleged specifically that the metal-on-metal aspect of the device resulted in dangerous side effects, including metallosis, a condition in which metal particles escape into the bloodstream.

In December 2016, a jury in Dallas concluded that the metal-on-metal hip implant devices were designed in a defective manner and failed to include warnings about their dangers. The Dallas jury awarded the six plaintiffs $32 million in compensatory damages and over $1 billion in punitive damages. Compensatory damages are a type of damages designed to compensate a plaintiff for expenses associated with his or her injuries that stem from the accident. Common examples include medical expenses and lost wages.

Punitive damages, on the other hand, are a separate category of damages that are designed to punish a defendant for engaging in particularly egregious, wanton, and willful conduct while also serving to deter other similarly situated individuals from engaging in similarly reprehensible behavior.

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In a recent case, the plaintiff brought a personal injury claim against another driver and his company after he was injured in a car accident. The case proceeded to trial, and a jury found in favor of the plaintiff. The jury awarded him $84,283 in economic damages and $40,000 in noneconomic damages.

The defendants argued the award should be reduced, since the plaintiff paid only $1,941 toward his medical expenses, and his insurance had paid the rest. Initially, the trial court agreed and reduced the award to $24,299. It took the original economic damages award and reduced it by the cost to secure the collateral source benefits of approximately $58,000, resulting in the award of $24,299.

However, the state’s supreme court reversed the case on appeal and held the plaintiff’s award should not have been reduced. The court explained that normally, a state statute allowed an award to be reduced if the expenses were paid by another source. But the court further explained that this rule did not apply if the other payer was entitled to reimbursement from the plaintiff. Since in this case, the insurance company had a right to be reimbursed, even if only for a portion of the amount, the award should not have been reduced.

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Raw milk is becoming an increasingly popular choice as an alternative to traditional dairy products that have undergone pasteurization. For all of the benefits purportedly associated with consuming raw milk, there are also substantial health risks. In the United Kingdom, for example, an outbreak that led to six confirmed cases of Campylobacter was linked to a raw milk vending machine. The outbreak started in roughly mid-December 2016 and has now resulted in at least 56 cases.

In general, Campylobacter causes over 280,000 instances of food poisoning each year in the United Kingdom, with nearly 75,000 of those cases directly tied to food-related sources. It is also a serious threat to consumers in the United States. Raw milk products can contain a variety of contaminants that can be harmful if consumed. Some of the dangers associated with raw milk from cows, goats, sheep, and other livestock include Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria. These illnesses can be severe, often requiring hospitalization and leading to fatalities on occasion. Although the sale of raw milk remains unlawful in many areas, there are some localities that have enacted rules allowing the sale of raw milk in limited situations. For example, many of these laws allow consumers to purchase raw milk products if the consumer travels to the farm where the raw milk is sourced and purchases the raw milk directly from the farm.

If you have suffered injuries as a result of consuming a contaminated food product, you can bring a personal injury claim against the individuals or companies that may be responsible. When it comes to food contamination, there are many parties involved in the production process, including farmers, harvesters, packers, processors, distributors, packaging plants, chefs or cooks, and restaurant staff. According to the negligence doctrine, each of these individuals has a duty to use reasonable care and skill when handling, processing, or serving food. This standard encompasses any applicable health and safety regulations. If the plaintiff can show that the defendant failed to follow an applicable statute or regulation in relation to the food product, the plaintiff will be allowed to assert a rebuttable presumption that the defendant acted negligently.

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In a recent case arising out of allegedly negligent medical care provided by the defendants, the court dismissed three wrongful death claims that were filed during the pendency of another wrongful death claim. According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff had filed a medical malpractice claim against her father’s doctor in one lawsuit, against another doctor in a second lawsuit, and against a medical center in third and fourth lawsuits. All of the claims were based on the same event:  the death of her father.

The court looked at an older case and explained that when two lawsuits involve the same parties and the same wrongful death claim, the court that first acquires jurisdiction retains jurisdiction over the case, and subsequent lawsuits are prohibited. The court explained that the first state court that has jurisdiction over a wrongful death claim then has exclusive jurisdiction over the case, and other subsequently filed claims should be dismissed. Thus, as long as a wrongful death claim is pending, other subsequently filed claims have “no effect.”

In this case, the plaintiff first filed a wrongful death claim for the alleged wrongful death of her father. After that claim was filed, she then filed three more wrongful death claims involving the same events. The court looked at the previously decided line of cases and determined that the subsequently filed cases were properly dismissed. The court explained the rule applied both in cases with multiple plaintiffs and in cases with multiple defendants. As a result, the subsequent cases were dismissed, and the only option the woman had to bring claims against the other defendants was try to amend her original complaint.

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