California drug rehab facilities are responsible for providing a safe space for patients to go through withdrawal and complete recovery.
That means protecting them and preventing them from obtaining drugs from other patients.
When roommates and other patients are allowed to supply your family member with drugs, the facility is fully liable for an injury or a tragic death that results.
Who Is Responsible if Another Patient Provides Drugs for an Overdose?
All businesses in California owe their customers and clients a “duty of care.” It’s a duty spelled out under the state’s premises liability laws. They must keep guests as safe as possible while visitors are on their property and in their care.
That legal duty is only magnified when the question of care involves a patient. Under accepted health care standards, patients are rightly considered much more vulnerable and at risk and deserving of stronger care and monitoring. When drug rehab facilities accept a new patient, they accept the responsibility to provide a higher degree of surveillance and care to keep them safe.
Part of that elevated duty is keeping patients safe from harming themselves and being harmed by other patients. Other residents can represent the threat of physical assault. They can also provide drugs like Fentanyl or Cocaine for Substance Use Disorder patients in what’s supposed to be a “drug-free” environment.
Drug facilities can be financially liable for overdose injuries or a fatal overdose involving any patient. The negligent supervision they show when a patient can obtain drugs and disseminate them to other patients only serves as more evidence for a stronger case.
When Drug Rehab Facilities Fail Their Patients
Drug treatment centers are responsible for all failures in security and surveillance that allow a patient to smuggle drugs into a facility:
- A failure to properly search patients during the intake phase.
- A failure to continue body searches and room searches for each patient.
- Negligent security in screening visitors who might supply a patient with drugs.
- Negligent monitoring of private areas where drugs may be sold or offered with little monitoring. (e.g., beds, bedrooms, bathrooms)
- A failure to monitor patients frequently enough to capture an overdose quickly enough.
- A failure to expel a patient who is supplying drugs to other patients.
- A failure to investigate and fire any staff member supplying drugs to patients.
These and other failures in a facility’s duty make it easier for families to sue and earn support from drug clinics. But strong evidence will be needed to prove a roommate’s involvement and a facility’s negligence.
A skilled California rehab facility wrongful death lawyer can help families secure evidence that’s locked away behind facility doors. We are also experienced in taking on corporate lawyers who will be called in to question everything about a victim’s case and even try to blame the victim. Our lawyers are ready to protect your family and help them seek justice.
The Support We Demand for Families
Families will be left to cope with incredible grief after the news of a heartbreaking overdose. But they can also face a financial disaster when the bills arrive for a funeral. Ambulance fees and emergency room bills may also arrive.
These are the damages left after a tragic death that a negligent drug treatment clinic should be 100% responsible for.
An experienced lawyer can make sure they are held accountable for these hardships and more:
- The cost of a funeral and burial service
- The payment of leftover medical bills
- Replacement of the income a loved one had contributed to support the family (e.g., spouse, children)
- Support for the emotional loss involving the absence of guidance, love, and sense of security that families can no longer draw from
- The loss of companionship for parents who lose a child while in a sober living home or an adolescent drug rehab
Contact Us if a California Rehab Facility Allowed Your Loved One to Overdose.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to families who had a loved one injured or lost a loved one at a California rehab facility.
Call us today or fill out a free case review form. If you need our help, we don’t charge your family anything upfront. We are only paid if we win the case for you. Then our fee comes out of the settlement that a negligent facility must provide.