Florida's nursing home reform and its anticipated effect on litigation.

Extract

---

Florida's nursing home reform and its anticipated effect on litigation.

The Florida Legislature recently amended Florida's nursing home statute (1) to address many of the controversial issues pertaining to nursing home care that the state has been grappling with for almost 20 years. Patients' advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have often taken the position that the state's administrative policing of nursing homes has been ineffectual. Their argument is fueled by horror stories of abuse and neglect that have occurred at some facilities. These advocates believe that the courts are the only effective means of forcing nursing homes to provide quality care, and assert that large punitive verdicts are the only message corporate officers will understand. (2)

In response to these large verdicts and numerous frivolous suits, the nursing home industry began to pull out of Florida, and many insurance companies stopped writing liability policies for Florida nursing homes altogether. (3) This was happening at a time when the need for nursing homes in Florida was greater than ever and continuing to increase. (4) Often, even nonmeritorious suits against nursing homes would be difficult to defend because of the sensitive and inflammatory subject matter, and many of these suits resulted in disproportionate jury awards. (5) Plaintiffs' attorneys tended to paint the picture of "the evil nursing home that abused poor grandma or grandpa, putting profits over patient well-being." Consequently, nursing homes became an easy target as the scapegoat for juries who wanted to find someone to punish for the regrettable fact that we all grow old. (6) The reality is that a large number of nursing homes in Florida have themselves been victimized and are losing money. (7)

The statutory reform attempts to solve the problem on two fronts: first, by trying to improve the care itself; and second, by trying to level the litigation playing field by discouraging frivolous suits and restricting unbridled punitive verdicts. (8) Toward the first goal, the statute contains many new administrative requirements, standards, and enforcement provisions that must be implemented by nursing homes immediately. This article, however, will focus only on the second goal, which concerns litigation reform and how these statutory changes are likely to affect claims and damage awards.

Background

In 1980, a Dade County grand jury conducted an investigation and ...

See the full content of this document

---