Make the Best
Litigation Decisions

When a resident falls, plaintiff's counsel asks one question: Why didn't the facility stop it? It's a powerful question. It's also the wrong one. The better question is: What was the facility allowed to do? Residents don't surrender their rights when they move into long-term care.

A resident falls. A pressure ulcer develops. An infection turns serious. To a grieving family — and to a jury primed by their own memories of aging parents — each of these can look like proof that someone failed.

When the plaintiff's attorney writes an enormous figure on the courtroom board, most jurors have never seen a number that large attached to a real person. That is the point. The number is not a calculation. It is an anchor.