Most people choose a rehab facility based on what they promised.

This promise could have been on their website, in a brochure, or on other paperwork.

The promise may have said “24/7 supervision”, “24/7 clinical supervision”, “24/7 medically supervised”, “around-the-clock care”.

What is “Negligent Supervision”?

Negligent supervision means the facility failed to monitor a patient at the level the law requires, and/or at the level they promised to provide.

• When supervision is required by law: California’s Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) sets specific minimum standards for licensed residential treatment facilities. These standards include documented face-to-face patient checks at regular intervals, minimum staffing levels, staffing qualifications, emergency response capability.
• When supervision is promised: When a facility promises 24/7 supervision in writing and the supervision logs show a patient was not checked on for six hours, that contradiction is powerful evidence of both negligence and, potentially, fraud.

A negligence claim requires proving that the defendant owed a duty of care (such as supervision), breached that duty, caused the plaintiff’s injury or death, and resulted in actual damages. See: Do I Have a Case?

Why Facilities Fail:

Negligent supervision rarely happens by accident. It usually happens because of decisions made by facility management prior to a patient’s death. These are the patterns we see most often:

• Checks skipped, logs falsified: Unfortunately, it is common for staff to fill in logs at the end of a shift, marking checks as complete that never happened. Video surveillance footage has directly contradicted written supervision logs in California rehab cases that have gone to litigation.
• Unqualified staff: Some facilities cutting corners place unqualified staff in overnight supervision positions. These may be people lacking clinical training, no certification in overdose response, and/or no experience recognizing the signs of something such as fentanyl intoxication. In some cases, facilities are understaffed.
• Invalid emergency response protocol: Even when a patient is found unresponsive, the outcome depends on what happens next. Facilities that lack Narcan, have staff who don’t know how to use it, or delay calling 911 turn a survivable overdose into a fatal one.

How We Investigate Negligent Supervision:

When a family comes to us after a loved one’s death at a California rehab facility, the first thing we do is begin building an evidentiary picture of what supervision actually looked like.

We may seek:

• Supervision logs: for the shift when the death occurred and compare them to prior shifts for patterns
• Staffing schedules: to determine actual coverage on the night in question
• Surveillance footage: from the facility requested ASAP, before it is overwritten
• DHCS inspection reports: Reports and prior complains and violations could tell the story of a facility that knew it had a problem
• Facility policies and training records: what were staff actually trained to do, and did they do it

Some evidence supports a negligent supervision and wrongful death claim. If a facility knowingly maintained unsafe supervision practices to cut costs, it may also support a claim for punitive damages.

Damages – What Families Can Recover:

Damages are the losses the family can recover, such as lost financial support, funeral costs, and loss of companionship.

A successful wrongful death claim based on negligent supervision in California could include:

Economic damages:

• Funeral and burial costs
• The financial support your loved one would have provided over their lifetime
• Loss of household services and contributions

Non-economic damages:

• Loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, and guidance
• The grief and suffering caused by the loss of the relationship
• These damages are not capped in ordinary negligence cases. MICRA does not apply to supervision failures at rehab facilities.

Punitive damages:

• Available when the evidence shows the facility’s conduct was malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent
• Understaffing combined with falsified logs is strong punitive damages territory
• Punitive damages hold ownership, not just the facility, personally accountable.

Contact Us if you Suspect Negligent Supervision.

Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to families who lost a loved one at a California rehab facility.

Call us today or fill out a free case review form.