• 14
  • February
    2012

A recent story from nearby Florida and relevant here in North Carolina and elsewhere across the country stresses the flip side of an equation concerning nursing home abuse, namely this: While nursing home abuse or negligence is one thing, collecting on an award is another consideration altogether.

What the Florida case revealed, and what was made manifest during a trial there, was how nursing home ownership and accountability has become so much shifting sand for some enterprises, especially large for-profit chains. Notable to a jury there in a wrongful death case was that there was no defendant in the courtroom. In fact, there was no defendant at all.

The original defendant no longer existed, having sold out to another entity. That company inherited the nursing home's income, but was not the "owner" in any comprehensive sense. A third company was actually responsible for debts and liabilities.

In some instances, and in what observers call a new phenomenon and model for avoiding liability in the industry, a nursing home enterprise's structure, holdings and management are successively splintered, to the point where finding and assessing liability becomes something akin to a shell game. One company runs the home. Another collects the rents. Another leases the property. Another does the hiring. And so on and so on.

One writer on the subject has described this new reality as "tracking money movements back through time and targets."

An injured party or family seeking to bring a claim on behalf of a loved one might want to secure the services of a proven personal injury attorney with investigatory experience and the requisite resources to do that.

Source: Tampa Bay Times, "Who should pay the $200 million for nursing home death? It's complicated" Stephen Nohlgren, Feb. 5, 2012