ElderLaw Podcast Transcripts: The Litigator's Role

We recently posted a series of ElderLaw Radio podcasts that discuss nursing home abuse, the problems that can lead to it, and the best ways to pursue a nursing home abuse lawsuit. We now bring you the transcript of these podcasts so you can read along while listening in.

In "The Litigator’s Role," our own Jim Sokolove talks about the most common situations in nursing homes that can result in elder abuse, when the time is proper to pursue legal action, and the reasons why Sokolove Law is committed to pursuing elderly and nursing home abuse lawsuits. Narrator: “This is an Elder Law Radio special report on nursing home abuse. Are your loved ones safe in our current system? And now, your host, Rachel Gotbaum.”

Rachel: “I’m Rachel Gotbaum with Elder Law Radio. I’m speaking to Jim Sokolove. He’s an attorney who has been representing nursing home residents and their families for over two decades.”

Jim: “My mom was in a nursing home for twenty years; my dad was disabled and bedridden for ten years. So personally I’ve really a major issue – a major concern of, you know, problems of folks, whether they’re in nursing homes, assisted living, or areas where they’re working with home health aids.”

Rachel: “I know your firm has lawyers who handle nursing home cases across the country. Have the number of complaints increased?”

Jim: “We’ve seen, since we’ve been involved in this over the past 25 years, a steady increase in the amount of claims we’ve seen. We have approximately a million-five people that are currently in nursing homes today. And the type of problems that come about all come about based from one issue: lack of sufficient staffing. The problems that come about that families have to be concerned and watch out for are things like bedsores from the patient not being turned sufficiently, choking to death from their food not being cut up into small enough portions, wandering, where the person is not watched and contained. And then you have a typical problem of falls, where there is not enough staffing to guard someone who is frail. These are probably the four main areas of abuse that are seen.

Any radical, noticeable change in behavior should be something to alert a family what went wrong. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there was abuse or neglect, but you want to see what has caused this sudden change in behavior.”

Rachel: “At what point do you seek legal action?”

Jim: “The first thing you’re going to want to do is take care of your loved one’s care; make sure that someone comes in and tends to the situation, whether it is dehydration, whether it is lack of food, whether it is bedsores, whether it is a fracture, whether it is wandering, whether it is disorientation. Then, speak to the administrator of the nursing home; speak to the doctor in charge there; speak to the state agency. In most situations, you’re going to have a suspicion there might be something wrong, but you’re really not going to know for sure whether there’s been negligence by the nursing home – whether there’s been abuse or neglect. So your job is to try to investigate, and then, and only then, talk to a lawyer who specializes in the area of abuse and neglect to nursing home residents. And most attorneys who specialize in this area – and there are lawyers across the country who specialize in nursing home and elder abuse – they’re going to investigate, they’re going to get the records, and they’re going to investigate to see if something is wrong.

But this type of matter is similar to a medical malpractice case in a lawyer is not going to take the case unless there is catastrophic injuries. And what is catastrophic injuries? Catastrophic injuries is death or total disability, or a fracture that is going to last a long period of time. They’re going to investigate to make sure that there has really been a deviation from the standard of care, and that deviation of the standard of care has caused catastrophic injury.”

Rachel: “What kind of advice can you offer to families who have to evaluate these facilities?”

Jim: “You want to educate yourself. There are two great websites. The first one I suggest you look at is aarp.org; the second website is medicare.gov. I suggest that you go to these two websites because they’ll give you both instant reports and ratings of how the government has seen these nursing homes operate. Two, I really strongly advise, if you have a choice in the area between a nursing home that is owned by a for-profit, and a nursing home that is owned by a non-profit or religious order, that you lean towards a non-profit and religious order. The next thing you do is you’ve got to do a site visit. And everybody goes and does a site visit, and they say, 'Oh, there’s a beautiful family room, Oh, there’s a beautiful library, Oh, there’s no odor here' – forget about it.

Now one major thing that you’re looking for is staffing, the staffing ratios, and you want to meet the director, and you want to meet the director of nurses, and you want to interview these people; and you want to talk to what is called the ‘OMBUDS-man.’ Each state in each area has an OMBUDS-man for nursing homes. Furthermore, each nursing home generally has both a resident council and a council that is set up by family members. Meet other family members whose residents have been there.

How long have they been there? Do they have any problems there? And the most important thing is you have to be actively involved; you have to be a partner of the nursing home resident. You must act that way.”

Rachel: “Is there anything you’d like to add?”

Jim: “What we really want is to know that nursing home residents, home healthcare residents, and assisted living residents are going to be provided with a safe place. What we really want is to change the system. Our job is to do it through the courts. What everyone’s job is to do, is to work with our legislatures and work in federal government so this isn’t a problem that we don’t deal with. It is not simply a problem of your dad or my mom in a nursing home, and they’re being compensated for being injured. It’s a question for our being involved in changing the entire system – because it doesn’t work.”

Rachel: “That was attorney Jim Sokolove. For Elder Law Radio, I’m Rachel Gotbaum.”

Narrator: “Thank you for listening to Elder Law Radio, a production of Elder Law Answers. Elder Law Radio, sponsored by Sokolove Law at www.SokoloveLaw.com. For more Elder Law Radio, go to ElderLawAnswers.com/Radio.”

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