Venice families usually come to this office with a feeling before they come with proof: a parent who is suddenly thinner, a wound nobody mentioned, a fall that keeps happening. That feeling deserves to be checked against the facility’s own records. I represent Venice families in nursing home abuse, neglect, and wrongful death cases.
Venice’s facilities
Venice has one of the oldest median ages in Florida, and nursing homes and assisted living define much of the island and the mainland along US 41 and Jacaranda.
What to do this week
Start a dated notebook and photograph what you see. Request the complete chart in writing, because Florida law puts a working-day deadline on producing it. Report immediate danger to 911 and the state’s abuse hotline and the long-term-care ombudsman, which creates records the facility cannot edit, then have a lawyer send the preservation letter that freezes the video and staffing sheets. In these cases the family is the alarm system.
The clock, and the courthouse
A Venice case is litigated in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit at the Silvertooth Judicial Center in downtown Sarasota, after a presuit notice and investigation period, generally on a two-year discovery clock. I worked the defense side of these cases before I chose to represent families.
See also the Sarasota County nursing home abuse page.
The book
Hurt in a Florida Nursing Home
The warning signs, the records race, the staffing spreadsheet at the root of almost everything, the arbitration trap, and the two-year clock that is shorter than it sounds, in one plain-English book written for the family that suspects something is wrong. Free to Florida families, with the digital edition to read the moment you ask.
Common Questions
How do I get my mother’s records?
Put the request in writing as her health care surrogate, attorney-in-fact, or personal representative. Florida law gives the facility a set number of working days to produce the chart, so keep a copy of the dated request.
Is every bad outcome a case?
No. Frail people fall in good facilities, and skin can fail at the end of life despite real care. What separates tragedy from a case is the pattern: the staffing, the records, and a story that does not add up.
What does it cost?
Contingency: no fee unless there is a recovery, and the consultation is free. The greater cost is usually waiting, because the records race runs whether or not anyone is running it.
Related reading: nursing home abuse, bedsores, and about Rory Safir.
