You trusted them with your mother. Then you noticed the bedsore no one mentioned, or the weight loss, or the fall that somehow never made it into a report. Now the facility is giving you polite answers that explain nothing.
Yes, you can sue a nursing home for neglect in California, and the law gives families more leverage here than in an ordinary injury case. Facilities that cut staffing and let residents suffer face consequences written specifically for this situation. Here is how it works, in plain language.
Neglect is not the same as a bad outcome. Elderly people do decline, and not every injury means someone broke the law. Neglect means the facility failed to provide the care a reasonable caregiver would provide.
California law defines it as failing to give a resident the basic care they need, including:
Chronic understaffing sits behind most of these failures. A facility that schedules too few aides to turn every resident is not having bad luck. It is making a business decision.
This is the part most families never hear about. California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act covers anyone 65 or older, plus dependent adults between 18 and 64 who have limitations that make them vulnerable.
Under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 15657, if you prove by clear and convincing evidence that the facility was reckless, oppressive, fraudulent, or malicious in neglecting your loved one, the law adds remedies that an ordinary negligence case does not offer:
That higher standard is a real hurdle. Meeting it changes the economics of the case entirely, which is why these claims get the attention of corporate ownership in a way a routine complaint never does.
Neglect usually announces itself in small, deniable ways before anything serious happens. Pay attention to:
Trust what you observe. Families are usually right about this well before anyone confirms it.
Pressure sores deserve particular attention. They develop in stages, over time, in people who are not being repositioned. A wound that has reached the point of exposing tissue did not appear overnight, and its stage tells a story about how long the neglect went on.
When neglect contributes to a death, two claims can run side by side. A wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving family for their own losses. A survival claim belongs to your loved one’s estate for what they endured before they died.
Under the Elder Abuse Act, that pre-death suffering is recoverable when the heightened standard is met. For a resident who spent months with an untreated wound, that period of pain becomes central to the case rather than something the law ignores.
Often the family signed a stack of documents on the worst day of the year, and buried in it was an arbitration agreement. Facilities raise these constantly to keep cases out of court.
Do not assume it settles the question. Arbitration clauses can be challenged on several grounds, including who signed, whether that person had authority to sign for the resident, and whether the terms are unfair. Bring the paperwork to a lawyer before you conclude your options are closed.
Timing here is trickier than in most cases, because the deadline depends on how the claim is framed.
An elder abuse claim generally falls under California’s two-year deadline for personal injury. But if the conduct is characterized as professional medical negligence, a shorter and more restrictive deadline can apply. If a public facility is involved, a written claim may be due within six months.
Because the framing affects both the deadline and the damages available, this is not a question to sort out on your own. Our guide on how long you have to file in California covers the general rules.
Move quickly and document everything:
Facility records have a way of becoming tidier once a family starts asking pointed questions. Getting the chart early matters.
Your family did not put a loved one in that facility expecting to fight for basic dignity. When a business takes payment for care it never delivered, it should answer for that.
At DP Injury Attorneys, we take on institutions that count on families being too exhausted and grief-stricken to push back. We will obtain the records, bring in medical opinion, and pursue the full remedies California law provides for elder neglect. Cases involving severe or permanent harm fall squarely within our catastrophic injury work.
Contact us for a free, private conversation about what happened. There is no fee unless we win.
Arthur Paul D’Egidio is the Managing Partner of DP Injury Attorneys, a San Diego personal injury law firm. With more than 12 years of experience in California injury law, he has dedicated his practice to representing clients in a wide range of personal injury matters, including car accidents, workers’ compensation, slip and falls, catastrophic injury, and wrongful death cases.
Arthur received his Juris Doctor from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and is a member of the State Bar of California as well as the San Diego County Bar Association. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including being named a Super Lawyer for seven straight years by Thomson Reuters and a “Top 40 Under 40” by the National Trial Lawyers.
