Wrongful Death in Baltimore County
If you’ve lost a loved one due to the negligence or wrongful act of a party in Maryland, your life may have suddenly taken a drastic turn. The sudden loss of a loved one, especially because of a death caused by another party, may make it hard to put your own life together, pick up the pieces and try to move on.
Part of healing and moving on may be getting a firm idea of exactly what happened to your family member and why. Through this process you may learn that your loved one passed away because of mistakes made by other parties, mistakes that may continue to harm others. Many people in these situations choose to file legal actions to make responsible parties accountable for their acts. This not only might result in compensation for your loss, but will make it clear to the other party and others similarly situated that they can’t get away with lethal mistakes.
Wrongful death is a type of personal injury case that allows the next of kin to seek compensation for their emotional loss, as well as financial losses, due to the death of a family member. These cases are based on the claim that a party acted negligently when it did something, or failed to do something, which lead to the death. They can also be based on an accusation that someone acted intentionally to harm or kill the person.
Before such a lawsuit can be filed, there needs to be an investigation into the circumstances of the death; experts in a particular field may need to be consulted, and applicable laws need to be considered. If the facts, expert opinion and law point toward possible liability for the death, family members should seriously consider filing a wrongful death lawsuit.
There are a number of situations that could be the basis of a wrongful death lawsuit.
- A resident of a group home in Towson suffers a fatal head injury after being pushed into a wall by another resident. If the attacker was properly screened, group home management would have discovered a past history of violence and wouldn’t have been admitted the individual. If the home was properly staffed and residents sufficiently supervised, the attack may have been prevented.
- A nursing home resident wanders off the property and is struck and killed by a vehicle while she crosses a nearby street in Catonsville. The nursing home didn’t properly evaluate her; as a result, her care plan lacked instructions to warn staff of the chances the resident would try to leave the nursing home. Also, the resident was able to walk away due to a lack of alarms and an unlocked door.
- Because of mistakes at an Edgemere nursing home pharmacy, a resident is given medication that results in a severe allergic reaction which leads to her death. Due to lack of staffing, the reaction isn’t noticed in time, a call to paramedics to get the person to a hospital is delayed, and proper medical care comes too late.
- A company that provides portable X-ray services to nursing homes and retirement communities decides it can make more money by defrauding Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies. It cuts corners and saves money by having unqualified, non-physician employees interpret the images, not licensed radiologists. As a result diagnoses were delayed to the point that treatable conditions became terminal illnesses, resulting in the death of patients.
- A resident of an Owings Mills nursing home chokes to death after a nursing assistant feeds him food that didn’t comply with his physician’s diet orders, which called for mechanically ground soft food only. The assistant who was supposed to help the resident eat set up the food tray on his table, positioned him to begin eating, then stepped away. The resident started eating and began to choke.
- Because Medicare payments ran out, a Parkville nursing home improperly discharges a resident in order to make room for another person whose care is paid by Medicare, not Medicaid, which reimburses at a lower rate. The resident is sent to an unlicensed, ill-equipped and dangerous assisted living facility where she dies after falling down some stairs.
If you feel your family member died in Baltimore County under circumstances that may show another party is responsible for the death or you have questions about wrongful death lawsuits, contact the Law Offices of Roger S. Weinberg, LLC. Because there is a statute of limitations, or time limit, for filing a wrongful death claim in Maryland, you should not delay. For compassionate, competent advocacy following the death of your loved one, call 410-825-3161 or use this online contact form to arrange for a free consultation.