State Senator Joseph Vitale and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle on July 31 announced legislation that is intended to put into effect recommendations made in an independent organization’s report on New Jersey nursing homes and their response to Covid-19. The bills’ backers reportedly hope to get the legislation fast-tracked through the senate and assembly and to the governor’s desk.

The bills seek to impose better protections for staff and residents in the event of public health emergencies, as well as improve resident care and the working environment.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed cracks in our long-term care system,” the legislators said in a joint statement, describing state nursing homes as “particularly unequipped to mitigate the spread of the virus.”

“As a result, the impact … in these facilities has been devastating,” they stated, citing state death statistics of more than 6,700 residents and 120 nursing home employees to date. ”These numbers are unacceptable.”

Pandemic Command Center, Higher Pay for Staff Among Bills’ Provisions

The legislation is based on recommendations made by Manatt Health, an independent agency commissioned earlier this year by Gov. Murphy to review the state’s oversight of nursing homes.

Among other measures, the bills would:

• Create an emergency operations center in the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH) to provide a centralized command and resource center for disease-outbreak response efforts in nursing homes;
• Establish a long-term care advisory council to advise DOH on nursing home oversight;
• Establish a state task force on nursing home quality and safety, which would recommend improvements in care, resident and staff safety, and workforce “engagement and sustainability.”

The bills would also raise pay and grant other benefits to nursing home workers. They would increase the minimum wage for direct-care staff and also give one-time, lump-sum payments to staff who provided “a certain volume of direct care services to residents” during the current pandemic.

The legislation would also impose tougher penalties on facilities that fail to meet already existing state and federal safety standards.

According to Insider NJ, the legislation has been referred to the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee and the Assembly Aging and Senior Services Committee.

Contact a Respected Bergen County Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect Lawyer

Although state and federal laws designed to protect nursing home residents from unsafe conditions have existed for years, enforcement of these rules in New Jersey and most other states has been plagued by difficulties, leaving our most vulnerable citizens at risk. Elderly nursing home residents are often not in a position to report or complain about abuse or neglect, so much of it goes undetected. Further compounding the problem, many long-term care facilities are owned by for-profit companies that cut corners on staffing and care, leaving patients in the hands of poorly trained, overworked caregivers.

Indeed, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency tasked with overseeing and enforcing nursing home safety, has ranked nearly 30 New Jersey nursing homes as far below the national standard of care. Clearly, nursing home safety laws are meaningless without strong measures in place to enforce them and punish violators.

Aretsky Law Group P.C. has many years of experience holding negligent nursing home operators accountable for the harms they cause. If your senior loved one has suffered abuse or neglect in a New Jersey nursing home, we can put our expertise to use in pursuing compensation for their negligent care.

Since Tomasi already suffered from a pre-existing neck injury, the slip escalated his current conditions. As a result, he needed two surgeries. One of these surgeries was a spinal fusion surgery, which is known to be particularly intensive. According to the plaintiffs (Michael Tomasi and his wife Alison), ShopRite was responsible for cleaning the aisles of the store in order to maintain the safety of shoppers.

As with other tort and negligence cases, assessing the legal liability of the accused party can be accomplished by evaluating four critical elements of a personal injury case. These elements are duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages.

Duty is the term used to acknowledge one party’s legal or contractual obligation to another party. In the case of a Tomasi’s fall, ShopRite had a legal duty to provide a safe environment for patrons of the store.

The breach of duty occurs when one party breaches their duty of care to the other party. In the case of Tomasi, ShopRite breached their duty of care to Tomasi by neglecting to keep the aisles of their store intact.

The third element required in a wrongful death case is causation. Essentially, the court must be able to reasonably infer that the accused party’s breach of duty directly caused the injury of the other party. For example, Tomasi’s team of attorneys had to prove that without ShopRite’s negligence, Tomasi would not have slipped and furthered his pre-existing neck injury.

The final element of a personal injury case is damages. The state of New Jersey follows a modified comparative fault rule. Under this system, the party that is more than 50% cannot recover damages. On the other hand, the party that is less than 50% at fault (for example, 49% at fault) may recover those proportions of the damages. In addition to these compensatory damages, New Jersey personal injury settlements can also include unlimited damages for pain and suffering, which is considered a non-economic damage. Pain and suffering is deduced by considering how the injured party’s daily routine will be altered, lifestyle factors that are affected by the injury – such as sleep, and how the injury will impact the injured party in the long term.

The only damages that are capped for personal injury cases in New Jersey are punitive damages. Punitive damages are those that are intended to punish the party-at-fault for particularly hostile and/or dangerous behavior. In New Jersey, these punitive damages are capped at five times the compensatory damages or at $350,000 depending on which figure is larger in the particular case.

Nursing Home Abuse in New Jersey

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “abuse related citations nationwide are on the rise, jumping from 3,083 in 2016 to 4,107 in 2018”. Last year alone, there were over 350 complaints filed to the hotline controlled by New Jersey’s long term care ombudsman. Clocking in at 364 reported incidents, the bulk of nursing home abuse cases in New Jersey in 2018 are classified as “resident-to-resident physical or sexual abuse”. Notably, verbal abuse is another popular mechanism of mistreatment at long-term care facilities.

While many cases of nursing home abuse are perpetrated by caretaker and CNA’s who work at the facility, there are also a multitude of cases involving other residents inflicting distress on to other residents. However, it is the responsibility of the center to appropriately assess this threat and mitigate the danger that unruly residents may cause to other patients.

As the global population ages due to improved medical and technological advancements, nursing home abuse becomes a more prevalent issue. For example, a 2008 survey indicates that the elder population is expected to reach 84 million by the year 2050.

Why Does Nursing Home Abuse Occur?

According to data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) there are more than 15,000 nursing homes in the United States. Out of this figure, roughly 70% are for-profit institutions. Since these centers rely on profits to survive, nursing home management often hires inexperienced or poorly trained staff in order to cut costs and increase their profitability. This can be considered absurd, taking into account the rising cost of long-term care in the United States. Since many patients pay centers upwards of $80,000 annually for care, they expect a higher standard of care.

The Department of Health in the United States holds nursing homes to a high standard, outlined in the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987. This provided many protections to patients and their families, including the ability to monitor and update the patient’s Care Plan. Nursing home facilities must be in compliance with these federal regulations in order to receive tax dollars from Medicare and Medicaid to fund operations.

Contact a Reputable Nursing Home Abuse Attorney

Unfortunately, these regulations are often not enough. If you or loved one has suffered from nursing home abuse, contact the Aretsky Law Group P.C. in order to protect your family’s rights and ensure that you are properly compensated for any violations of patient rights that may have occurred at a nursing home.

In October 2015, Natalie Esposito Capano was awarded with The Peter W. Rodino, Jr. Society Seton Hall University School of Law Excellence in Achievement Award. Our many congratulations go out to her on this incredible achievement.

Natalie is skilled in negotiation and mediation and is an experienced litigator with 12 years of experience in complex legal research, including not only divorce law, but workers compensation and real estate law.