Healthcare providers like nursing homes and hospitals generally prefer to arbitrate, rather than litigate, South Carolina medical malpractice claims. There are several reasons for this, including the likelihood that the damages award paid out to a particular medical malpractice victim (or his or her family, if the patient died) will…
More and more often, nursing homes, assisted living centers, and the like are requiring patients and their families to sign binding arbitration agreements prior to a patient’s admittance. Nursing homes do this because they do not want a jury to hear a South Carolina nursing home abuse case in which…
In recent years, there has been a trend toward alternative dispute resolution, such as arbitration, in some kinds of cases, including South Carolina nursing home abuse cases. It is important to note that the reason for this trend is not because injured individuals or the families of those who have…
Those who are confined to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are extremely vulnerable. While it would be nice to believe that these individuals are given the care and treatment that they need and deserve, this is not always so. Unfortunately, South Carolina nursing home negligence and medical malpractice…
Placing a loved one in a nursing home, long-term care facility, or assisted living center is an extremely difficult, emotionally fraught decision – perhaps one of the toughest choices many of us will ever be called upon to make. Often, the primary reason for deciding to place a family member…
Several months ago, we told you about a federal court of appeals’ decision in a case in which a medical malpractice insurance company sought a declaratory judgment as to its responsibility to cover certain acts of malpractice after it was discovered that a fake nursing home “doctor” had illegally assumed…
Nursing home owners do not like jury trials. In fact, the idea of a jury comprised of everyday men and women determining whether a nursing home neglected a patient and, if so, awarding damages to a patient or the patient’s family is so distasteful to many nursing home owners that they require…
It seems that the amount of paperwork required in order to be admitted to a hospital, nursing home, or other health care facility grows with each passing year. It can be overwhelming even under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, health care providers can be quite demanding and pushy, shoving papers into…
There are several issues that are common in nursing home and senior care litigation, such as falls, medication errors, bedsores, and medical malpractice. In the recent unreported per curiam opinion of Evanston Insurance Company v. Agape Senior Primary Care, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was asked to…
The United States government is a huge entity that cannot possibly be aware of every instance of fraud of which it is a victim. To increase the odds in the government’s favor, Congress passed the False Claims Act, which contains a qui tam provision through which a whistleblower may initiate a lawsuit…