Liability For The Elderly At A Retirement Center

Even when a facility touts added safety and features to help the elderly address mobility issues, there can be failures and hazards. Retirement communities have an added legal obligation to consider the added challenges faced by their residents to ensure there are safety features and precautions taken to allow residents as much ease of navigation as possible. However, not all retirement centers meet this higher standard. Common safety hazards are often found in the facilities that include:

• Water or other fluids spilled on the floor but not swiftly mopped up
• Food, litter, or other items spilled or dropped on the floor that are not quickly cleaned up
• Overflowing trash cans that are not emptied, creating trip and fall hazards
• Wet floors have been recently mopped, but there is no sign warning of the added slip and fall potential
• Loose or damaged flooring surfaces
• Missing, damaged, or saturated floor mats at entrances or commonly moist areas
• Damaged or malfunctioning plumbing fixtures flooding floors
• Water lines or hoses that leak onto floors make them dangerous
• Damaged, broken, or missing safety handrails at steps or ramps
• Poorly marked or unmarked transitions from one flooring surface or pavement to another
• Poorly marked or unmarked transitions from one elevation to another, such as  at steps or ramps

These are common safety issues that could be quickly corrected or marked with a safety warning to prevent the residents from suffering harm. What makes these challenges more upsetting and difficult for retirement community residents is that many suffer common health issues that make mobility an added issue, such as:

• Back and spine issues
• Dizziness from prescribed medications
• Loss of vision, diminished vision, or blurred vision
• Foot, leg, and ankle issues
• Decline in balance or frequents loss of balance
• Declining leg strength
• An uneven gate or shuffling as they cannot fully lift their feet

Retirement centers have the increased obligation to meet the needs of older residents by increasing safety and mobility aids, When they fail to meet this obligation, they can be held liable for the harm suffered by the elderly due to trip and fall, slip and fall or other common injury incidents that happen daily in these facilities.

According to premises liability laws, all property owners and their staff are required to maintain the spaces in a safe and hazard-free manner. Because retirement centers have an added obligation, they must provide added care and inspections to ensure the features needed by the elderly residents are in good working order and are safe for use. If the staff at a retirement center fails to take proper action as defined by duty of care, which is to act in at least the same manner as the average prudent person, they can be deemed negligent in their duty of care, If that negligence is found to have caused or contributed to someone suffering harm at the retirement facility, it can be held liable for the losses and expenses incurred by the victim.

It is vital that you understand that there are no predetermined compensation amounts awarded for retirement center injuries. Like all personal injury lawsuits, each case is carefully evaluated, and the court awards compensation based on the actual losses and expenses of the injury victim. So, the numerical average of recent cases will have no impact on the value of your retirement center injury lawsuit.

Working with your DTLA Law Group retirement center injury attorney, you will gather all documentation to verify your allowable expenses used to determine the amount of compensation sought by your lawsuit. The items that are most often used in this process include, but are not limited to:

• The cost of replacement for any personal property that was damaged or destroyed in the retirement center injury incident
• The cost of all legal services related to preparing, filing, and litigating the retirement center personal injury lawsuit
• The cost of all current and projected medical expenses related to the harm sustained in the retirement center injury incident
• If the victim is still working at a regular job but the harm they suffered prevents them from completing the required tasks of their work, they can seek compensation for their lost income from the date of the injury until they are cleared by their medical care providers to return to the duties of that work

Personal injury victims have two years from the date of their injury to file their claim with the court. If the case is not filed within that time, the victim loses the right to pursue legal action to secure compensation for the losses and expenses caused by that incident. It is also vital to know that there are limited exceptions that would allow the victim added time to file a lawsuit once the original time limit has passed. Please reach out to DTLA Law Group to discuss this time restraint further.

When you hire DTLA Law Group to handle your retirement center injury lawsuit, you never need to worry about how you will afford to pay upfront legal fees and expenses. Our firm never asks for any payment or reimbursement for the expenses we cover during your casework until the matter has been resolved. At that time, you will have received your compensation, which includes funds to pay your legal fees and other expenses without added hardships. We understand that requiring no out of pocket payments to handle a personal injury lawsuit means that all injury victims can get the legal services and help they need to secure any compensation owed to them for the harm caused by someone else’s negligence.

Finally, if your retirement center injury attorney fails to win the case and deliver the compensation you need to cover your bills and expenses, you owe DTLA Law Group nothing for the time and financial investment made by the firm when preparing your case. Please make time today to reach out to the caring and skilled staff at DTLA Law Group to learn more about this very viable and useful process to help cover expenses that were the result of negligence on the part of the staff at your retirement center.

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