Tampa Nursing Home Emotional and Mental Abuse Lawyer

Because nursing home staff spend time around the clock taking care of residents, this can sometimes lead into situations of verbal or mental abuse. This can include verbal harassment, bullying, and other types of emotional trauma. This can cause residents to backtrack in the physical or mental therapy that they go through each day to try to get better, and maybe even leave the nursing home.

If your loved one has suffered both emotionally and mentally while being cared for in a nursing home, it is important that you contact a Tampa nursing home abuse lawyer as soon as possible. A seasoned attorney can assist in preparing a case to maximize any potential damages.

Common Examples

Sometimes, a staff member may have a power complex or some type of issue with the residents themselves. In other instances, a staff member may not appreciate or understand the difficulties that the resident has, by no fault of their own, and the staff member may verbally abuse or bully that resident because they feel like it is within their rights as a staff member of the nursing home to take it out on the residents.

Many times, residents’ families will notice a regression in the patient’s mental or physical improvement while at a nursing home. This could potentially come from either mental or verbal abuse toward the resident by either nursing home staff or other residents. This is absolutely something that can create a claim or cause of action against a nursing home.

Patients who have some kind of physical, mental, or vocal disability that has required their residence in a nursing home are especially vulnerable to this type of abuse. Such abuse could cause them to backtrack in their therapy and could cause some regression in their progress, which is especially concerning to family and friends.

One main warning sign that shows there may be some kind of verbal or mental abuse occurring is if the resident starts to backtrack in the physical or mental therapy that they have been working on while in the nursing home. If an individual notices this type of regression and suspects abuse, they should not hesitate in contacting a Tampa nursing home emotional and mental abuse attorney.

Source of Abuse

Many times, this type of verbal or emotional abuse will come from the other residents. However, it is the responsibility of the nursing home to create a safe environment for each and every one of the residents, so staff members have a duty to prevent and stop the abuse from occurring. This could be done through separating the residents or creating a solution between them.

If the abuse is coming from staff members, then that constitutes a direct intentional tort on behalf of the agents of the nursing home, so a causative action or a claim will be made directly to the nursing home itself. The nursing home management would need to terminate the specific employee or staff member and correct the procedures or processes they have in place to ensure that this type of abuse does not ever happen again. In this scenario, all of the damages, including potential punitive damages, would be appropriated against the nursing home itself, and can be effectively argued for by a Tampa nursing home emotional and mental abuse attorney.

In this scenario, all of the damages, including potential punitive damages, would be appropriated against the nursing home itself, and can be effectively argued for by a lawyer.

Management Involvement

If the management is aware of the abuse, the case becomes even worse for the nursing home as a whole, as punitive damages could extend all the way up to management. If management does not know about the abuse but they continue to employ and ratify this employee’s actions, they can still be charged with some kind of negligence or even impute some kind of a knowledge based on the actions of the employee.

The management team is considered an agent of the nursing home, and the agency theory states that if the agents are acting within their scope of employment while abusing a nursing home resident, and the employer or manager does not do anything to stop it, then they could be liable for the actions of the agents.

Important Steps to Take

If someone is being mentally or emotionally abused in a nursing home, they can be removed and/or transferred to another facility. They can also make a complaint to the managerial staff and hire an experienced Tampa nursing home emotional and mental abuse lawyer to see if it is necessary that a claim be made if the abuse has risen to that level. A knowledgeable lawyer will be able properly process the case in order to maximize any potential damages your loved one may deserve.