Nursing Home Abuse Case Verdicts

Verdicts of Nursing Home Cases

Nursing home abuse cases are perhaps some of the most difficult cases for lawyers to handle. They usually involve older, frail residents who are unable to communicate or explain what’s happened to them. That includes their ability to defend themselves against the abusive situation within the nursing home, and certainly not in a court of law.

The evidence in a nursing home case must convince the jury that:

• The evidence establishes that the alleged abuse, in fact, took place
• The nursing home or staff member failed a duty to care for the resident
• There is some form of compensation and punitive action due

Evidence placed before a jury is interpreted through:

• Witness statements and sworn testimony
• Observations, diagrams, and photographs
• Patterns of behavior
• Interpretations of medical records
• Expert witness opinions

A jury decides a case based on the evidence and the witnesses they trust. They look at the full picture and decide if the nursing home is responsible, not responsible, or partly at fault.

What Type of Court Handles Nursing Home Abuse Cases?

Almost all of the nursing home abuse cases that a private law firm takes on are civil proceedings and are paid for privately. This is usually where the family of an abuse victim seeks to prove that wrongdoing took place and seeks to reach the civil courts to compensate them for:

• Emotional and suffering damages
• Financial costs and reimbursement for expenses
• Punitive awards against the nursing home or the individual offender

In a lawsuit brought before a court in a jury trial, it’s not the judge sitting on the case who makes the decision of right and wrong. That verdict is delivered by the jury members who are empaneled to listen to the evidence and make their decision based solely on the weight of the evidence presented to them.

To understand how a jury reaches a verdict and which legal verdicts are available to them, it’s important to review how the jury system works and the different types of courts that use it.

Criminal Court

Realistically, the only types of nursing home abuse that would be brought before a jury in criminal court would be serious penal code offenses. These would involve significant circumstances where:

• Death occurred from intentional or grossly negligent acts
• Injury or grievous bodily harm occurred from wrongful acts
• Cases of sexual assault in a nursing home
• Serious financial offenses involving large thefts, frauds, or forgeries

Minor criminal offenses involving a nursing home resident victim would not likely present facts to a jury. They would be tried by a judge alone.

With very few exceptions, criminal case juries must be unanimous in their decision, and the choice is between guilty and not guilty. Criminal juries must be convinced of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”. The test of “reasonableness” must amount to a belief above having a strong suspicion; the burden of proof is not beyond “all” doubt.

Criminal juries are allowed leeway in interpreting and applying “reasonableness”. This is an issue the trial judge will make clear before directing the jury to deliberate and return their verdict.

Civil Court

The vast majority of jury trials involving nursing home abuse cases are held in civil courts. Here, the plaintiff brings a complaint of abuse against the defendant. Usually, the plaintiff is family members acting on behalf of the victim of abuse who are seeking compensation against the defendant. Usually, the primary defendant is the nursing home’s corporate body, represented by its lawyer and a company executive.

The processes involving a civil jury trial involve:

• A claim filed, which is the start of the lawsuit or legal action
• An investigation into the facts that identifies witnesses and their evidence
• Notices and statements of fact being served by each party
• Examination for discovery prior to trial, where witnesses are examined under oath
• Preparation for trial and offers to settle
• Jury trial commenced, and jury members were chosen
• Evidence was placed before the jury members
• Direction or charge to the jury by the trial judge at the conclusion of evidence
• Jury deliberation in private
• Delivery of the verdict
• Awarding of damages
• Appeal process

Jury deliberations in all trials, whether civil or criminal, are always in private, and the jury members are “sequestered” or held out of communication with the outside world from the time they retire for deliberation until they return with a verdict. This could range from a few hours to over a week.

Jury members hearing civil court evidence regarding nursing home abuse cases do not have the same burden of fact-finding that criminal juries do. The test for a civil jury is to reach a conclusion based on a “balance of probabilities” from the “preponderance of the evidence”. Depending on the jurisdiction, civil juries may not have to be unanimous in their decision and may only require a majority consensus.

Further, civil court juries have more options in fact-finding. Most civil court juries can find the defendant:

• Not guilty
• Guilty
• Guilty to a lesser degree
• Partially responsible
• Responsible but not liable for damages or punitive action

Other Jury Trial Outcomes

All too often, mistakes are made during the jury trial process that are deemed to have compromised the jury’s ability to make an impartial decision and deliver a fair verdict. This can result in a “mistrial,” in which the case is abandoned and must be retried.

Occasionally, a jury is unable to reach a verdict and ends deliberations. This is called a “hung jury” and also results in a retrial.

Despite a lengthy trial process and a long, careful jury deliberation and verdict delivery, lawyers for either the plaintiff or defendant may find an error in law that gives them grounds to appeal the jury’s decision to a higher court. The appellate court may choose to hear the appeal or refuse to hear it. Appeal courts have the right to uphold the verdict, quash it, and direct the case back to another trial.