Jim and Carrie Carroll at Carroll and Carroll, P.C. represent the injured people of Pennsylvania and New York in Bradford, Sullivan, Tioga, Susquehanna, and Chemung counties in personal injury, premises liability, slip and fall, automobile accident and workers’ compensation cases Jim and Carrie Carroll at Carroll and Carroll, P.C. represent the injured people of Pennsylvania and New York in Bradford, Sullivan, Tioga, Susquehanna, and Chemung counties in personal injury, premises liability, slip and fall, automobile accident and workers’ compensation cases
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    6/18/2008
    James R. Carroll, Jr., Esquire
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    NURSING HOMES AND MANDATORY ARBITRATION

    From Philly.com:

    Patients hoping to get into nursing homes increasingly are signing away their rights to sue over poor care.

    That's a problem, say lawmakers who are pushing legislation to make such agreements unenforceable.

    The nursing homes argue that arbitration arrangements to which many families agree actually lead to dispute resolutions that are fairer than court cases. But legislators, supported by consumer-advocacy groups and trial lawyers, say families should not be giving away their ability to hold the homes accountable for poor care.

    A Senate committee will hear today from the family of William Kurth, who fractured his hip and leg and contracted numerous pressure ulcers during his final months of life in a Wisconsin nursing home. When his family attempted to sue for negligence, a judge dismissed the case because Kurth's wife had agreed, as part of her husband's admission, to have all complaints go through an arbitrator.

    The Senate panel, which is investigating the growing use of binding arbitration by nursing homes, says more than 100 lawsuits have been filed in the last five years challenging such agreements.

    Arbitrators take into account federal, state and county laws when resolving legal disputes. Often, the parties are free to negotiate some of the ground rules for their case. The process has the advantage of being faster and less expensive for both parties. It also is confidential.

    Few families are even thinking about the possibility that they might want to go to court when they admit their loved ones to nursing homes.

    Kurth's wife, Elaine, was under extreme duress and on medication when she signed the papers that allowed her husband, a stroke victim, to stay at the nursing home, the family's attorney said.

    Family members who will appear before Congress say the World War II veteran died at age 84 from infections that occurred because excrement and urine were not cleansed from his bedsores for days at a time. David Kurth of Burlington, Wis., says arbitration has become a shield for large corporations to hide behind and decrease the quality of care.

    "It is economically more profitable to let people like my father suffer than to provide proper care," Kurth said in written testimony prepared in advance. "And now that our family is trying to hold the nursing-home corporation accountable for its actions, Kindred Care is trying to bury our case by forcing us into a mandatory, secret, and binding-arbitration process that they chose."


    Labels: arbitration lawsuit negligence nursing home


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