When you trust the care of an elderly loved one with a nursing home or residential facility, you do so with your family member’s best interest in mind.
While most of these facilities provide adequate care for their residents, unfortunately, many come up short due to negligent hiring or improper training.
Nursing Home Justice, led by attorney Mac Hester, helps you or your loved one recover from injury or illness due to nursing home neglect. Contact us today at (303) 775-8128
When a nursing home hires an unqualified or dangerous individual, the repercussions can be severe. The same is true when the facility makes a reasonable hire but fails to train them properly.
An improper hire can come in many forms. The most common is when a facility hires an individual that is not qualified for the position they are seeking. This could include hiring a person without any medical training in a position that requires it.
Another common issue with improper hiring has less to do with qualifications and more to do with character. For example, hiring a person with a history of negligence claims or a violent criminal record could be risky, even if they possess the appropriate experience and training.
Improper training claims also take different forms. In some cases, nursing homes may provide little to no training to their employees before assigning them responsibilities they lack the training for.
In other cases, a nursing home facility might train an employee for one task only to assign them another one they are not familiar with.
Many negligence claims involving improper hiring or training stem from situations where an employee violated the rights of a resident. Colorado law provides nursing home residents with specific rights that employees of these facilities must uphold. These rights include:
When nursing home employees fail to respect these rights due to inadequate training or hiring practices, an experienced local legal representative could help the resident hold them accountable through litigation.
In a claim for negligent hiring or training, the employee of the facility could be held liable for the harm the resident has endured. That does not mean they are the only party that could face legal action, however.
In Colorado, a plaintiff may seek legal action against both the employee that injured the resident and any staff that allowed it to happen or contributed in any way.
As long as the employee was working within the scope of their employment at the time they acted negligently, an injured nursing home resident could have a viable claim against the facility.