Drug rehab facilities can try to avoid liability for a tragic death by saying that patients and families assumed the risk after signing a waiver.

Negligent facilities often try to hide behind a waiver form after a tragic and preventable death, but this defense isn’t always a strong protection.

Families who lose a loved one can still earn justice and support by filing a strong claim backed with evidence of a facility’s gross negligence.

When A Waiver Doesn’t Protect a Drug Rehab Company

Patients and their families will likely be required to agree to risk acknowledgement forms, also known as waiver of liability documents.

Families may think this means they can’t seek justice after a loved one suffers an injury or a tragic death, but that’s simply not true.

A waiver form usually protects businesses from the standard dangers that guests may encounter. In a drug rehab, that might include injuries that patients suffered when participating in activities outside the program’s functions.

But waiver protection doesn’t often extend to inpatient drug treatment centers. The patient’s entire life is usually behind the walls of the facility. The program’s operators often have control of the patient’s entire life.

The patient is also known to be vulnerable. These facts make it hard to argue that an overdose or withdrawal death didn’t have something to do with the care received.

Rehab Centers can be held liable. A drug program may claim that your loved one assumed the risk. But your precious loved one did not assume the blame for staff failures and negligent care.

The Reasons A Drug Rehab Facility Is Responsible

With evidence of negligence on the part of security staff or clinical workers, grieving families can file lawsuits and often secure support.

Waivers don’t usually get health care network owners off the hook for financial liability. Families could still often secure help with funeral costs and leftover medical bills. A spouse and children of the victim could also ask for help in replacing the income the deceased can no longer provide to support the family.

Facilities generally couldn’t waive away their responsibility, because liability forms don’t protect in certain situations:

• Waivers don’t work for Gross Negligence: Waivers can deflect some legal responsibility for ordinary negligence, but when gross negligence is involved, that form is usually worthless. Gross negligence refers to negligence shown that is extremely reckless. That might include an owner who purposely cuts staff to dangerous levels simply to boost profits. It might include a facility that allows its NARCAN supply to run out, leaving staff unprepared to deal with an emergency.
• Waivers don’t work when criminal behavior is involved. This might involve a staff member allowed to sell drugs inside a facility.
• Waivers don’t work when California statutes or codes have been violated. Proof of a code violation, such as Health & Safety Code 11834. can be enough to prove a family’s case. This might involve a facility offering a service it wasn’t licensed to provide, costing a patient their life.
• Proof of negligent care or medical malpractice. This can encompass a failure to monitor a patient closely enough, allowing a deadly overdose. It might involve the mishandling of medication. It might point to a delay in calling 911 after an emergency is discovered.
• Negligent Hiring. When staff members are hired without a background check and without their qualifications being confirmed.
• Forced Waivers. A patient forced to sign certain waivers to get desperately needed care also wouldn’t likely hold up in court.

Evidence of this carelessness can be difficult to obtain when lawyers for the facility work to block access. A skilled California Rehab Facility Wrongful Death Lawyer assists families in making legal requests to have evidence preserved and then turned over.

Affirmative Duty in a Drug Rehab Wrongful Death

A general liability agreement wouldn’t usually allow the facility owner to escape all blame in a tragedy. This is generally because the company or corporation would often bear an elevated responsibility to keep Substance Use Disorder patients from harm.

This extended duty is often interpreted as a “special relationship.” It’s a special duty of care that goes beyond normal premises liability.

It’s often based on a few factors. A patient enters the facility very vulnerable. The patient is very reliant on the program. Program administrators are largely in control of the patient’s life and surroundings. It makes it hard for anything to happen to a patient without the facility being accountable.

In legal terms, a special relationship creates an “affirmative duty.” It’s a responsibility for centers to take positive action to protect patients, even if the facility didn’t cause the hazard.

All of this care that’s supposed to be shown can leave facility owners fully liable for a tragic death. Families can prove that this additional responsibility existed and have a simpler time proving their case.

Contact a California Negligent Rehab Lawyer

A patient who dies while in the care of a drug rehab facility is not to blame. You may feel you are the only one voicing concerns about the care and attention your loved one received. You aren’t alone.

Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to families who lost a loved one. It’s a no-risk, no-obligation way to find out what a wrongful death case would be worth and how to hold a negligent treatment center fully responsible.