An investigation into a drug rehab center after a tragic overdose death can reveal many ways the facility failed a patient. The first clue can be the fact that a victim could overdose in a supposedly “drug-free” environment.
Evidence can emerge that staff members didn’t monitor patients closely enough, known as negligent supervision. Unqualified employees may not have spotted the signs of overdose quickly enough. They may not have taken proper action once the overdose was identified.
Evidence of these and other failures allows families to hold negligent facility owners and operators liable for their broken promises and reckless care of patients.
Proving a Rehab Facility Was Negligent
After an overdose death, corporate lawyers for drug rehab facilities can try to obscure what really happened. They may give family members some standard answers, including that nothing could be done to prevent a tragic death. They may attempt to seal the results of an internal investigation.
But if staff members’ negligence contributed to a fatal overdose, there will usually be a long trail of evidence.
These signs and inconsistencies, and others, can point to a negligent treatment center that should be held fully liable:
- Evidence that a family member was experiencing an overdose a long time before being discovered.
- Evidence of negligent supervision, perhaps involving room searches that weren’t carried out.
- Evidence that monitoring records weren’t accurate or updated. (perhaps falsified)
- Inaccurate bed check records and Q15 logs.
- Evidence that overdose patients weren’t monitored closely enough during a vulnerable recovery time.
- 911 records showing that an emergency call was made too late.
- Medication records showing that life-saving medicines, like NARCAN, weren’t administered correctly or often enough.
- A failure in security to keep drugs and unsafe visitors out of a facility, perhaps shown in surveillance footage.
Corporate lawyers can make getting access to evidence difficult. Fortunately, an attorney experienced with taking on large healthcare networks can help families secure the proof they need to build a strong wrongful death claim.
See: Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim After an Overdose
Overdose Wrongful Death Support for Families
When facility owners and operators can be shown to have created an unsupervised and unsafe space, they can be fully liable for the harm that comes to patients.
A skilled lawyer can file a wrongful death claim on behalf of families with as little disruption to their lives as possible. This gives families more time to focus on coping with their grief and properly mourning someone taken too soon.
A Survival Action may also be filed. This claim seeks support for a patient’s suffering before they passed away. It can cover the ambulance fees and hospital bills accumulated before a victim’s death.
A wrongful death claim and survival claim can provide financial support for these hardships and others:
- All funeral costs.
- All leftover medical costs.
- All lost income that the deceased had supported a spouse and children with and would have continued to do in the future.
- Support for the loss of care, security, and guidance that a loved one provided.
- Support for the “loss of companionship” that parents who lose a child at an adolescent drug rehab center will continue to endure.
- Reimbursement for the admission fees that families paid to get a loved one to check a family member into a supposedly safe
It’s more rare, but punitive damages penalties can be assessed against an extremely negligent facility. This is meant to punish the facility further, but the fines paid go directly to grieving families.
Contact Us If a Rehab Center’s Negligence Claimed the Life of a Loved One.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to help California families stay informed of the steps they can take after an overdose death.
Call us today or fill out a free case review form.
A skilled attorney has a great chance to earn you and your family much more than they could by handling these complex cases themselves. And victims never have to worry about paying a lawyer. We aren’t paid unless we win the case. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check a facility must write for the family.