Tragically, we receive calls here at The Dickson Firm from families whose loved one has been assaulted in their nursing home or assisted living facility.  We were recently contacted by a family whose loved one was raped in her assisted living facility.  After an investigation, it turned out that the same employee who raped her, raped another woman and attacked another man who was a resident of the facility.

The assisted living facility told each of the families of these individuals that they had memory issues and that they were probably imagining what happened to them.  As a result, the assisted living facility did not investigate the first two incidents which led to our client being assaulted.

Tragically, predators often seek out nursing homes and assisted living facilities as they present them with a number of vulnerable victims.  Many of these victims cannot report the assault or if they do, they are not believed.

A sexual assault for a nursing home resident or an assisted living resident is particularly awful.  The person's room in the nursing home is, in effect, their home.  It is their only private space.  It should be their safe space.  And for most of these people, they do not have a choice.  They cannot leave the nursing home.  They cannot get away from the predator.  They are a resident of the nursing home because they need care.  They are a resident of the assisted living facility because they need care.  And they cannot avoid being in the facility, and they cannot leave the facility.

So what can you do to keep your loved one safe?  

First and foremost, you should take any report of assault or rough treatment very seriously and make sure that the facility does a thorough investigation.  In the case that we were recently contacted about, if they had investigated the first complaint of sexual assault, they would have found the person, and he would have been fired and prosecuted.  He was ultimately convicted of multiple counts of rape and sentenced to many years in prison.  But only after our client was assaulted.  We represented a woman whose son concealed a camera in his mother's room and that camera captured the staff physically assaulting her.  Two of the employees in that case went to prison.  

Here at The Dickson Firm we have handled a number of cases where assailants ultimately been sent to prison.  Given our extensive work with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, and our representation of multiple clients who are survivors of sexual assault, and our extensive work representing residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities throughout the State of Ohio, we are uniquely situated to represent victims of sexual assault and their loved ones, particularly in cases where the assault occurred in a nursing home or an assisted living facility.

Nursing homes are required to screen their employees.  If a person has been convicted of any of a long list of criminal offenses they cannot legally work in a nursing home or in an assisted living facility.  Nursing homes are required to run a background check on each of their employees.  Nursing homes should contact a potential employee's past employer and find out why they left their past employment.  Were they fired?  Did anything happen?  Most nursing homes and assisted living facilities do not do that.  

If you are thinking of placing your loved one in a nursing home or in an assisted living facility, ask the staff how they screen potential employees.  Ask the staff if they do anything to screen those employees once they are hired.  One of the biggest problems is that most screenings only occur when the person is first hired to work at the facility.  If they commit a crime thereafter, often the nursing home takes no action.  

We represented a family of an individual who was severely neglected in a nursing home and ultimately died.  It was discovered that one of the nurses at the facility was arrested for possession of narcotics that were not hers.  She had a series of prescriptions that did not belong to her.  The nursing home had a problem with narcotics being stolen from the nursing home.  This nurse was arrested and put in jail for an extended period of time.  The nursing home knew she was in jail.  And yet they continued to employ her.  She was ultimately convicted of narcotic possession.  The nursing home still did not fire her.  She worked there until her two year reporting period as a nurse came up and she had to self-report the criminal conviction.  When she self-reported the criminal conviction, she lost her license as a nurse.  Only after she lost her license as a nurse, was she fired from the nursing home as a nurse, and the nursing home hired her back to work in the kitchen.  She worked there as a nurse for months and months having been arrested and ultimately convicted of narcotic possession.

Nursing homes often do a horrible job of screening their employees and monitoring their employees to make sure that they don't have any criminal convictions or other incidents that would make it improper, if not illegal, for them to work at the nursing home.  Sexual assaults that occur in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are devastating to the residents.  Many lawyers reject these cases because the resident has diminished capacity and they have memory issues.  

In the case that we just handled, the assisted living facility told the families that their loved one was in the memory care unit and was having memory issues and issues with depression and was probably just making up the assault.  In reality, all three assaults actually occurred.  All three residents were accurately describing what had happened to them.  And yet the assisted living facility did nothing and convinced their families to do nothing.  

We here at The Dickson Firm work incredibly hard to hold the owners and the operators of these nursing homes and these assisted living facilities accountable for these horrific assaults that have devastating consequences on these residents.  We work with experts to develop the damages.  We are relentless with discovery and we find out how many instances occurred at these facilities.  We dig into the background of the assailant.  The nursing homes and the assisted living facilities fight us tooth and nail in disclosing other incidents.  They want to convince us that the incident that occurred with our client was isolated.  In most cases it was not.  In most cases the nursing home and/or the assisted living facility did not respond properly to prior complaints about the person which is what led to the assault.

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1-800-OHIO LAW as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.