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Lack of insurance hinders recovery in nursing home cases.

Publication: Trial
Publication Date: 01-FEB-06 		Format: Online
Delivery: Immediate Online Access

Article Excerpt
Suing a nursing home is hard enough, plaintiff lawyers say. Now these facilities are throwing up another roadblock to plaintiffs seeking to hold nursing homes accountable for injuries caused by inadequate care: insufficient or nonexistent liability insurance.

Small, individual facilities are often set up as limited liability corporations (LLCs), shielding the owners' assets from lawsuits brought by family members of residents who are injured or die as a result of negligent care. In larger chains, nursing homes are often structured as independent corporations to protect the assets of the parent company. When a plaintiff wins a verdict, collecting the judgment is difficult.

"There has been a significant diminishment of insurance coverage over the last five years" in the nursing home industry, said Ira Leesfield, a Miami attorney who represents plaintiffs in nursing home cases.

Many facilities are going completely bare of insurance, said Derek Potts of Kansas City, Missouri. He has seen cases in which one corporation owns the nursing home business and a separate "pass-through" corporation owns the building and the facility's other major assets. The defendant then uses what...

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