Nursing Home Negligence: Court Cuts Down Fees To Lawyers

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

August 1999

   Quick Summary: When an injured or abused nursing home resident wins a lawsuit against the nursing home, the state Nursing Home Act says the court should increase the award to include a reasonable amount for the resident’s attorney’s fees.

   However, it is not reasonable simply to tack on an extra 50% of the damages just because the family had signed a 50% contingency fee contract with the lawyers.  SUPREME COURT OF OKLAHOMA, 1998.

   Many states have laws which define the rights of nursing home residents. To insure those rights, the laws give an injured or abused nursing home resident the right to sue the nursing home for damages and for reasonable attorney’s fees.

   This is a special exception to the general rule in American law that litigants pay their own attorney’s fees out of their own pockets or as a percentage or contingency fee of the amount won in the suit.

   In a recent case the Supreme Court of Oklahoma ruled it was right for a developmentally disabled adult to be awarded $750,000 for being beaten by his caregivers, on the theory the nursing home was negligent for allowing that to happen.

   However, it was not right, the court ruled, simply to tack on another 50% per the resident’s family’s contingency arrangement with the lawyers. Rather, the trial judge should add up the time actually spent on the case, assess the degree of difficulty presented by the case, etc., and arrive at a more reasonable figure. Morgan v. Health, 977 P. 2d 357 (Okla., 1998).