Anaheim Nursing Home Elopement Lawyer

Anaheim Nursing Home Elopement Attorney

When you make the difficult decision to put an elderly loved one in a nursing home, you are putting a great deal of trust in that institution. It’s reasonable to expect them to prioritize your loved one’s medical care and ensure that nothing happens to them. Depending on your loved one’s condition, they may end up leaving the facility unsupervised. If that happens, you may want to hire an Anaheim nursing home elopement lawyer to help you build a case.

Elopement occurs when an elderly resident, usually someone suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, leaves the facility without supervision and without anyone noticing. If this happens, you may want to take legal action against the facility with the help of a nursing home elopement attorney. You will want an experienced lawyer who has handled Anaheim nursing home elopement cases before and has knowledge of nursing home elopement laws.

Hire a Nursing Home Elopement Lawyer

While elopement is not considered elder abuse, it is often seen as a symptom of an abusive system. A nursing home that lets an elderly patient, who may be suffering from dementia, leave without anyone noticing may not be properly following guidelines. It’s important to hire a nursing home elopement lawyer who can help determine whether you have a viable case.

Stephen R. Hunter of Hunter Law, PC, has spent nearly two decades helping elderly victims get justice. He can help you, too.

Many elderly patients who leave their nursing homes without supervision tend to suffer from a form of dementia. According to a report from the Population Reference Bureau, there are over seven million elderly people across the country who may be suffering from dementia.

Additionally, there are over 200,000 cases of elder abuse reported throughout California every year, according to the California Department of Aging. Your situation is not uncommon.

If you have a loved one suffering from dementia who may be being mistreated in their nursing home, your mental health may be impacted. You may want to consider reaching out to a local support group for help, such as NAMI Inland Valley or Life Transitions. It can be good to have someone to talk to about everything you’re dealing with, especially if those people are dealing with something similar. They may be able to help.

What to Do in an Elopement Case

When you find out your elderly loved one has left their nursing home without supervision, it’s understandable to feel outraged, scared, and ready to take action. Obviously, your immediate priority is finding your loved one. Once they are found, you should contact a lawyer to start working on building an elopement case against the nursing home.

The following are some immediate steps you can take after finding out your elderly loved one is missing:

• Report a missing person: The very first thing you should do, if it hasn’t been done already, is call the police and report your loved one as missing. Make sure you inform the police of their condition. If the nursing home staff has done their job correctly, the director of the facility and local law enforcement should already be aware of what’s happening.
• Report the incident: Once your loved one has been found, you should begin taking legal action to ensure the people who let this happen are held accountable for their actions. You can file a complaint with the Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud & Elder Abuse (BMFEA), as well as the California Department of Public Health’s Licensing and Certification Division.
• Contact a lawyer: Once you’ve reported everything to the right people, you should contact a nursing home elopement lawyer to learn what your options are for civil damages. Be sure to document the entire elopement event from start to finish, including any video footage and witness testimony. If the elopement resulted in your loved one’s death or injury, you may have the basis for a very strong case.

FAQs About Anaheim, CA Nursing Home Elopement Law

What Type of Lawyer Do I Need to Take Legal Action Against a Nursing Home?

If you want to take legal action against a nursing home, you will need to hire a personal injury lawyer who focuses on nursing home abuse and neglect. Specifically, you should try to hire a lawyer with significant experience handling cases like yours. They can help you anticipate potential setbacks in your case and adapt past winning strategies. Nursing home abuse and neglect cases can get complex, and a lawyer can help.

Why Should I Hire a Lawyer for an Elopement Case?

There are many reasons why you should hire a lawyer for an elopement case. Above all, you want to make sure the right people are held accountable for what happened to your elderly loved one. It’s likely they were only able to leave the premises due to a lack of security or precautionary measures. A lawyer can help you pinpoint exactly why this happened.

What Is Elopement Risk in a Nursing Home?

Elopement risk in a nursing home is the possibility that a resident will leave the facility without supervision or authorization, which can lead to serious consequences for the resident. This tends to happen mostly with dementia patients, who are largely unable to take care of themselves and may not be aware of what they’re doing. Many nursing homes take precautions to prevent the risk of elopement, but it can still happen.

Can You Take Legal Action Against a Nursing Home for Elopement?

Yes, you can take legal action against a nursing home for elopement. While many nursing homes will have precautionary measures in place to prevent elopement, they can still fail. If they do, the nursing home could face liability for those failures. To make a case, you will have to prove that the elopement was the result of the facility’s inadequate safety measures or negligence.

Contact Us Today

At Hunter Law, PC, we can help you put together a case for elopement and seek compensatory damages. Contact us to speak to someone about how we can help.

Costa Mesa Hospital Abuse and Neglect Law Resources:

• Elder Abuse in America
• Reporting Nursing Home Abuse or Neglect
• Pressure Ulcer AKA Bedsore: A Common Injury in Elder Abuse Cases
• When To Consult An Attorney: Elder Abuse and Neglect
• California Nursing Home Abuse Laws – All You Need To Know
• Legal Protection Against Elder Financial Abuse in California: What You Need to Know
• How to File an Elder Abuse Lawsuit in California
• Warning Signs of Elderly Sexual Abuse in California Nursing Homes
• Why Experience Matters in Fighting Elder Abuse Lawsuits