Patients who check into drug rehab centers are extremely vulnerable. It’s why facility owners bear a heightened duty of care for anyone they admit and agree to treat.

It’s also why patients who manage to overdose in a facility aren’t responsible for the harm they endure. The facility is liable.

They allowed drugs into a facility that was promised to be drug-free. Facility owners may have engaged in negligent supervision, allowing staff to fail in monitoring patients as much as necessary to prevent harm. Other mistakes were likely made to allow such a frightening outcome.

These and other acts of negligence allow patients and families to file claims against rehab facilities and demand support for recovery.

Who Is Liable for an Overdose at a Rehab Clinic?

California drug treatment centers are absolutely liable for the protection of patients. They owe a duty of care under state premises liability laws and under healthcare standards enforced by California’s Department of Health Care Services (DHCS).

The responsibility for patients definitely includes preventing drugs from entering a secure facility. It includes monitoring patients so they can’t overdose. It includes the proper life-saving response to an overdose if it does happen.

Proof of Negligence

Facilities can show negligence on all of these fronts, but without proof, corporate lawyers can often get away with offering patients and their families zero support.

However, an experienced lawyer turns the tables and collects all evidence available. That includes internal documents from facilities that their lawyers will try to keep under wraps.

These are just a few of the pieces of evidence that will help families hold corporate health networks liable for an overdose:

• Rounding logs (monitoring records showing negligent supervision)
• Surveillance video showing security breaches allowing drugs into a facility
• Medication records
• Hiring records to reveal any unqualified employees and evidence of understaffing
• Cellphone and email records
• 911 records confirming if an emergency call was made soon enough
• The findings of an internal investigation
• In a tragic fatal overdose, the medical examiner’s medicolegal death investigation report or a coroner’s findings

How Do I Know If I Have a Case Against a Rehab Center?

Many families will assume they are powerless after a loved one overdoses in a rehab center. They’ll pay the hospital bills, and in tragic cases, have to cover funeral costs, all without question. And drug rehab facility owners hope it stays this way.

But the truth is, rehab centers are often liable simply from the promises they make and that are often broken in the case of an overdose. They promised a drug-free facility, but somehow a loved one was able to overdose.

They promised constant monitoring, but somehow a patient had the free time to obtain drugs and ingest them without being caught.

Under California law, families have a case if the facility had to care for the patient (they do), they failed in that care, that failure led to an injury or death, and patients and their families suffered damages. If these four things are true, families generally have grounds for a lawsuit.

Families can get more help with determining if they have a case or not on our website.

What Victims Can Earn After an Overdose

Victims who are injured in an overdose can receive full support for these and other hardships:

• Money to pay all medical bills
• Replacement of the income victims lost while unable to work
• Support for the pain they endure
• Support for the emotional trauma that comes along with an overdose and difficult recovery

In the case of a tragic rehab facility death, families must get help with the financial and emotional damages they’ll face.

These and other hardships must be covered:

• Funeral costs
• Leftover medical bills
• Lost income the victim may have supported the family with
• The love and guidance families will no longer receive from the deceased
• The loss of companionship for parents who lose a teen while they are at an adolescent drug rehab

See: How Long Do I Have to Sue?

Contact Us If a Rehab Center’s Negligence Caused Harm to Your Loved One.

Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to California rehab overdose victims and their families.

Call us today or fill out a free case review form to find out what’s possible.

A skilled attorney has a great chance to earn families much more than they could by handling these complex cases themselves. And victims never have to worry about how they’ll afford a lawyer. We aren’t paid unless we win the case; there’s no upfront cost. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check a facility must write for you.