Can Nursing Homes Be Held Liable for Abuse Committed by Staff in Indiana?

Abuse in nursing homes and long-term care facilities is frightfully common. If you believe your family member has been abused, we can help you sue the abusers. Depending on the circumstances, it might also be possible to sue the nursing home. In some cases, the nursing home is responsible simply because it employed the abusers. In other cases, the nursing home might be more directly liable.

Nursing homes may be held vicariously liable under the legal doctrine known as respondeat superior. This theory tends to hold up when the employee acts within the normal scope of their job when they cause injuries. In other cases, the nursing home might be more directly liable if they negligently hired someone they knew or should have known to be short-tempered and violent.

Additionally, the Indiana Supreme Court has created a special rule of responsibility often applicable to nursing homes in a case called Stropes v. Heritage House Children’s Ctr. of Shelbyville. The Stropes rule can establish nursing home liability where it might not otherwise exist.

In all cases, a lawyer can help you gather the evidence you need to sue the nursing home.

Contact our Indiana nursing home abuse lawyers at Wruck Paupore for a free case assessment by calling (219) 322-1166.

Who is Responsible for Abuse in Nursing Homes in Indiana?

Abuse in nursing homes can be a tough problem to solve because abusers often go to great lengths to conceal their actions. As such, determining who is responsible for abuse once it is uncovered can be difficult. In many cases, individual abusers may be brought to justice and held liable for the pain they cause. In others, the nursing home might also be held responsible.

Staff Members

If nursing home staff members perpetrate abuse, we can work with the authorities to identify the abusers and bring them to justice. Since nursing home abuse often goes hand-in-hand with criminal charges, the police are likely to investigate. Other state, county, or even local authorities might also investigate. For example, you can report the abuse or other complaints to the Indiana Department of Health, and they may conduct their own investigation.

Once we know who the abusers are, we can sue them in civil court. Often, abusive staff members include nurses and orderlies who are in charge of caring for nursing home residents. They might also include other staff members, like maintenance workers or custodial staff, who can get close enough to residents to abuse them.

Nursing Homes

Even though the nursing home itself is not a person who directly perpetrated the abuse, it may still be held liable for your loved one’s injuries and damages. Nursing homes are not just care facilities but also employers. As such, they might bear a certain degree of responsibility for employees.

In some cases, nursing homes are held liable simply because they employed the abusers who harmed your family member. In other cases, it is discovered that nursing home administrators have a more active role in the abuse. They might have known about the abuse and chose not to do anything out of fear that the story might get out and cause public backlash. Another possibility is that the nursing home fostered an environment where abuse was not only possible but probable.

How a Nursing Home in Indiana Might Be Held Liable for Abuse Perpetrated by Staff Members

Abuse in nursing homes is usually perpetrated by someone working there. The nursing home itself may or may not be held responsible for the actions of its employees. It all depends on how the abuse occurred and whether the nursing home administrators knew or should have known about it. Even if they did not know about it, there might still be ways in which the nursing home can be held liable.

Vicarious Liability

Even if a nursing home is not directly connected with the abuse inflicted by its employee, it can still be held vicariously liable simply because of its relationship to the abuser. Under the legal doctrine known as respondeat superior, employers may be held vicariously liable for injuries caused by negligent employees who were acting in the normal scope of their job when the injuries occurred.

This often applies in cases of negligence rather than intentional abuse. Generally, respondeat superior applies to cases where employees are negligent rather than outright abusive. The key here is that the injuries should occur while the employee performs normal duties as part of their job, which should not include abuse.

Even so, we might have a strong case for vicarious liability because abusers often hurt their victims while at work and on the clock. The fact that the abuser is using their job as a means to get closer to potential victims could be sufficient to maintain a vicarious liability claim.

Direct Liability

Depending on the situation, we might instead try to have the nursing home held directly liable for the abuse. We might claim that the nursing home should be held directly liable for negligent hiring or entrustment. This might work if the nursing home knew or should have known that the abuser was dangerous before hiring them and hired them anyway.

For example, maybe the nursing home ran a background check and discovered a potential employee had a history of abusing residents at other nursing homes they have worked at. If your loved one’s nursing home chose to hire this person anyway, they can be held liable for negligently hiring them.

We might also argue that the nursing home had knowledge of the abuse yet did nothing to stop it. Perhaps they even took steps to cover up the abuse and protect the abuser to avoid bad publicity and legal trouble. For this claim to succeed, we need evidence that the nursing home knew or should have known about the abuse. Have you filed formal complaints about the abuse before? Did the nursing home reprimand the abuser in the past about their behavior? If we can find records of these reports, we might be able to prove your claims.

Liability Under the Stropes Decision

In addition to these standard theories of liability, the Indiana Supreme Court’s Stropes decision found that certain types of care arrangements, like the types frequently found in nursing homes, impose a heightened level of care which is “non-delegable” and does not depend on the doctrine of respondeat superior. In cases where the home has assumed the responsibility of care and well-being of the resident. When this relationship can be demonstrated, the nursing home is required to exercise a heightened “extraordinary standard of care” which is greater than other circumstances and does not require a showing that the negligence was caused by an employee acting within the scope of his or her employment.

Call Our Indiana Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys for Help Right Away

Contact our Indiana nursing home abuse lawyers at Wruck Paupore for a free case assessment by calling (219) 322-1166.