To give patients the best chance at recovery, drug rehab treatment centers must provide drug-free environments.
In less secure facilities, patients can gain access to dangerous drugs like fentanyl. They can set back their recoveries, suffer injuries, and even endure a life-threatening overdose.
Facility owners and operators can face liability when drugs are allowed in and patients are injured.
What Is Premises Liability?
California holds every business responsible for the safety of those they invite in under Premises Liability laws. Under the state’s Civil Code (CC) 1714., rehab facilities must show care to any patient they admit and are responsible for their care.
It’s a duty to protect patients from any mistakes the staff members could make, and any harm other patients and visitors may cause.
And due to the unique position of patients, treatment facilities owe them an even higher level of care. Patients turn over a certain amount of freedom when they check in to a clinic. Because of their often fragile or vulnerable state, staff members are even more responsible for their well-being.
Their protection, including being safeguarded from exposure to drugs, is even more important, and owners and operators are held to an even higher standard.
Dangers of Contraband in Drug Rehab Facilities
Part of premises liability at inpatient rehab clinics involves the duty to protect Substance Use Disorder (SUD) patients from exposure to drugs. It’s a key part of recovery, because once drugs have been allowed into a facility, patients can relapse, and even land in a life-threatening overdose situation.
When premises liability protections are ignored, contraband, like fentanyl or prescription drugs, can make its way into a facility. For patients, it provides a dangerous path away from recovery and can lead to injury.
These are a few examples of premises liability negligence that can allow drugs into a clinic and harm patients:
- Negligent Security: A failure to find drugs on a patient’s person when they are admitted. A failure to keep visitors with drugs out of the facility.
- Negligence in Monitoring Patients: Staff members can miss their rounds and allow patients time to gain contraband, hide contraband in their rooms, and even overdose without being caught.
- Negligent Hiring and Supervision: Staff members could be the issue. An employee with a criminal past or drug problem could be supplying patients with drugs. These are issues that should have been caught by a stricter hiring process and/or stronger supervision for staff.
Victims of premises liability negligence and their families can demand support after contraband is carelessly allowed into a rehab facility. Strong evidence will be needed, and that can be hard to obtain, especially when facilities and their lawyers are withholding reports and the results of internal investigations.
A skilled California drug rehab facility injury lawyer will have the investigative skills to secure this evidence and force owners and operators to accept responsibility.
See: The CDC explains the scope of Substance Use Disorder (SUD)
Support Available for Drug Overdose Victims
An experienced attorney backs an injury claim with powerful evidence, and also prepares a full list of the patient’s hardships that must receive compensation.
This is a list of some of the factors that patients should receive full support for:
- Medical bills (e.g., ambulance fees, hospital care, physical therapy, neurological care after brain damage)
- Reimbursement for lost paychecks while victims can’t work
- Reimbursement for payments made to the rehab facility
- Support for pain and suffering (including emotional damages such as the psychological setback a relapse can cause)
After a tragic overdose death, facility owners can be asked for support from families who are mourning the loss of a loved one.
A California wrongful death attorney helps a spouse, the children, and the parents of the deceased demand these and other benefits to protect their futures:
- Support for the cost of a proper funeral and burial
- Support for any leftover medical bills
- Help replacing the income the deceased can no longer provide to support the family
- Support for emotional damages (e.g., the loss of care and guidance in the future, the loss of companionship)
Contact us if a rehab facility caused your loved one to get injured.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to rehab patients who have been injured and families who lost a loved one at a California rehab facility.
This meeting comes with no obligation. It’s a no-risk opportunity to find out what a case should be worth, and what treatment centers should be held responsible for.
Call us today or fill out a free case review form.