What Is the Timeframe For a Bedsore Lawsuit?

How Long Does a Bedsore Lawsuit Take?

The timeframe for a bedsore lawsuit depends on the facts of the case. Some nursing home neglect claims resolve through settlement negotiations, while others require a lawsuit, discovery, expert testimony, trial preparation, or trial. The timeline may also depend on whether the resident is still receiving treatment, whether the bedsore caused infection or hospitalization, and whether the nursing home or insurance company accepts responsibility.

What Causes Bedsores?

Bedsores are caused by friction and pressure that is applied to areas of the body when you haven’t been moved or had your position changed enough. The situation can be worsened if you aren’t provided with proper nutrition or hydration.  

There are four stages of bedsores. They are:

• Stage one is mild with reddening of the skin and is warm and painful to the touch
• Stage two is pinkish, appearing blister-like, and sometimes begins to open
• Stage three is deeper wounds, yellowish dead skin at the edges, infected, and require antibiotics for treatment
• Stage four is deeper, sometimes down to bone and tendons, all tissue in the area is dead, no longer painful, and the mortality rate is significantly increased 

If you are a resident in a nursing home and have mobility issues, or are confined to a bed, the facility should have best practices in place for ensuring that you are turned and moved every two hours. Not doing so consistently is a sign of neglect and one of the leading causes of bedsores in elderly or disabled residents.  

Liability for Bedsores

Nursing homes are responsible for the health and safety of their patients and can be held liable for neglectful treatment that leads to bedsores. Owners, managers, and staff can be held accountable for the neglectful and habitual lapse in standards of care that causes the most advanced cases of bedsores.  

A nursing home neglect lawyer can conduct a thorough pre-filing investigation to determine whether enough evidence exists to prove liability against the nursing home, facility owner, management company, staffing company, or other responsible parties.

What Is the Timeframe for a Bedsore Lawsuit? 

A bedsore lawsuit is a time-consuming process. At your initial consult, the attorney will have many specific and pointed questions about the bedsores you’ve suffered and any circumstances pertaining to how you got them. The lawyer will need to see your medical records to determine whether you’ve ever been diagnosed with a condition that is considered to be a common risk factor for bedsores. He or she will ask about the treatment you received at the facility, and specifically, if you notified the staff of any discomfort you were feeling or asked them to check for bedsores.

Your attorney may not recommend filing a lawsuit for every Stage 1 or Stage 2 bedsore. Bedsores at these stages may sometimes be corrected with proper nutrition, hydration, pressure relief, repositioning, and wound care. However, if the sore worsens, becomes infected, or progresses because staff ignored warning signs, an Illinois nursing home neglect attorney can evaluate whether legal action may be appropriate.

If the bedsore has progressed to Stage 4, there may be a reason to move quickly. Advanced pressure sores can lead to sepsis, cellulitis, bone infection, hospitalization, organ failure, and other life-threatening complications. The related article on bedsore life expectancy explains why serious pressure sores require urgent medical and legal attention.

Your bedsore lawsuit timeline will be broken up into a few stages. These are typical for most lawsuits, but the timelines of some may be extended due to the many steps of investigation your attorney will need to do. The next steps to your bedsore lawsuit process will typically involve an investigation, healing, settlement negotiation, and trial.

Investigation

During the initial investigation, your lawyer will need to interview you about the conditions and events leading up to your bedsores. They will also need to do a thorough review of your medical records to look for any contributing factors and to see if there is any indication that the facility was providing proper treatment for the bedsores.  

From here, your lawyers will need to get statements from other residents, staff, management, or anyone who may have information about your situation. They may even tour the facility to check on staffing levels compared to the resident population size, and how fast they respond when called.

Your attorney will also be investigating any previous cases of bedsores, neglect, or abuse coming from that facility. In addition to the nursing home, there may be a contract management company who have contributed to the neglect, or individual staff members who can be held liable for your injuries.  

Sometimes staffing contract companies fail to perform thorough background checks on nursing staff before assignment to a nursing home. It is possible for nurses with a history of neglect to slip through these cracks and be able to bring harm to future patients or residents. In cases like these, the staffing company may be liable for your injuries.

Healing

Your attorney may want you to heal as much as is expected before filing suit, especially if you are suffering from stage three bedsores. Any treatment you are forced to undergo in dealing with the bedsores could change the amount of damages you are awarded in a trial, and therefore the amount you can expect to be offered in a settlement if the facility chooses that route. For example, if debridement is considered medically necessary in addition to antibiotics, it is an extremely intrusive and painful process, which a judge or jury can be expected to take into consideration. 

If left untreated, bedsores can quickly escalate from stage one or two to stage three. At stage three, your bedsores may even require surgery, including flap surgery, where a segment of skin or tissue is removed from another portion of your body to cover the wound from the bedsores. The progression from stage two to stage three sometimes indicates a pattern of neglect by the facility, management, and staff, that has caused your bedsores to appear and progress.

If your bedsores have progressed to stage four, there may be a reason to compress the timeline. Unfortunately, bedsore life expectancy is significantly reduced once you’ve reached this point. The increased mortality rate is due to the fact that you may get an infection, like sepsis, that spreads quickly throughout your bloodstream. Bedsores can also cause certain types of cancer, cellulitis, or meningitis.  

Settlement Negotiation

At any time, once the facility or management company learns of the lawsuit being filed, settlement negotiations may begin. The insurance company or companies will hire attorneys to represent them. As your case progresses, and expert witnesses are interviewed and deposed, settlement negotiation may become more likely.  

Your attorney may recommend hiring medical experts with bedsore experience to assist you in this process. They will be able to help determine if the facility or staff was neglectful or abusive in their treatment of you, and will be beneficial in explaining the situation to a judge or jury should the case come to trial.

Trial

If the facility chooses to forego negotiations, or if you fail to come to a settlement agreement, your attorney may take your case to trial before a judge or jury. If a trial is required, it could take from several months to a year or more, before the case is heard. This step, along with the initial investigation, is where the timeframe for a bedsore lawsuit varies the most.  

If you reach an agreed-upon negotiated settlement in advance, you are saved the time and hassle of trial preparation and the trial itself. If you do not, then your nursing home abuse lawyer will need to prepare you, and your expert witnesses, if you’ve hired any, for the trial. The trial will likely last for several days, and then you’ll need to wait for the judge or jury to render a verdict and determine damages.

After a verdict is rendered, either side may appeal to a higher court in order to overturn the decision. This can significantly increase the timeline of your bedsore lawsuit because an appeal can take a year or more. Fortunately, most cases where nursing home neglect seems obvious will reach a negotiated settlement before this point. Your attorney will be your best resource in understanding the timeframe for a bedsore lawsuit and deciding how to handle your case.

What Should Families Do Before Filing a Bedsore Lawsuit?

Families can help protect a potential bedsore lawsuit by preserving information early. Nursing home neglect cases often depend on records showing when the wound appeared, how it progressed, what care was provided, and whether the facility followed appropriate prevention and treatment steps.

Important steps include:

• Take dated photographs: If appropriate and permitted, photograph the bedsore and any visible changes over time.
• Ask when the wound was first documented: The facility should be able to explain when staff first noticed the pressure sore.
• Request the care plan: The care plan may show whether the resident was identified as being at risk for bedsores.
• Ask for wound care records: These records may show measurements, dressing changes, treatment orders, and wound progression.
• Document staff explanations: Write down names, dates, and what staff said about the wound or treatment.
• Save hospital and medical records: Records showing infection, surgery, antibiotics, debridement, or sepsis may be important.
• Contact an attorney early: A lawyer can help preserve evidence before records, footage, or witness memories become harder to obtain.

If your loved one developed serious pressure sores in a nursing home, contact Strom Yen Injury Attorneys to discuss whether delayed care, poor monitoring, understaffing, or other signs of neglect may have contributed to the injury.

Bedsore Lawsuit Timeline FAQs