The challenge is proving it. Nursing homes control the medical records, the incident reports, and the staff who witnessed what happened. The moment you raise concerns, their risk management team starts building a defense, perhaps documenting that your loved one was difficult, that their decline was inevitable, or that the family didn’t visit often enough.
As Denver nursing home abuse lawyers, our role is to cut through the excuses and corporate red tape. We investigate the facts that prove whether negligence occurred. If you suspect your loved one is a victim of neglect or abuse, you are not overreacting, and you are not alone.
Call Born & McCaffrey Injury Law today at (303) 800-6996 for a no-cost, confidential conversation about your situation.
Why Choose Born & McCaffrey Injury Law
Our Approach to Elder Justice
When it comes to nursing home cases, we see it as a fight for human dignity. Your family placed its trust in a facility that promised to provide care, and when that promise is broken, justice is the only acceptable outcome.
Our roots are here in Denver. We understand the local medical landscape, from the major hospital networks to the specific corporate chains that own and operate many of the long-term care facilities across the Front Range. This local knowledge allows us to build stronger cases based on a clear understanding of the resources, regulations, and challenges specific to Colorado.
Attorney Michael Born’s Experience
Nursing home corporations are national entities with immense legal resources. You need a law firm comfortable with litigation, not just quick settlements. Michael Born brings years of courtroom and appellate experience to the table, ensuring that our clients are prepared for a serious fight if that’s what it takes.
We provide client-focused representation. To us, you are not just another case file. You are a family in crisis, and we treat you with the compassion and direct attention you deserve throughout this difficult process.
Our Location & Accessibility
Our office is located in Denver, making us accessible to families throughout the metro area and beyond. We are prepared to take on complicated and difficult cases that other firms might turn away. If you believe you have a case, we want to hear about it.
Our Promise to You
- Free Case Review: It costs nothing to speak with us and learn about your legal options.
- Contingency Fee Basis: We handle cases on a No Win, No Fee structure. This means we only get paid if we secure compensation for your family. There are no upfront costs to you.
- Direct Attention: You will work directly with our legal team, ensuring your questions are answered and you remain informed every step of the way.
Restoring Dignity: What Compensation Covers
No amount of money erases the pain and suffering your loved one has endured. However, a successful claim does two things: it provides the financial resources needed for better care moving forward, and it forces the facility to take responsibility for its failures
Economic Damages (The Financial Cost)
This is compensation for the direct financial losses your family has suffered. It includes:
- Medical Bills: Reimbursement for all hospital stays, doctor visits, medications, and therapies required to treat injuries caused by the abuse or neglect (such as a fall, infection, or untreated bedsores).
- Relocation Costs: The expense of moving your loved one to a new, safer facility that provides the proper level of care.
- Fee Refunds: A portion of the fees paid to the negligent facility during the period of abuse is sometimes recovered.
Non-Economic Damages (The Human Cost)
These damages are meant to compensate for the intangible, but very real, suffering endured:
- Pain and Suffering: For the physical pain, discomfort, and agony the resident experienced.
- Emotional Distress: For the fear, anxiety, depression, and loss of dignity caused by the abuse.
- Loss of Enjoyment of Life: Compensation for the resident’s inability to enjoy daily activities and life as they once did.
Punitive Damages (Sending a Message)
In cases where the facility’s conduct was particularly egregious, Colorado law allows for punitive damages. As outlined in Colorado Revised Statutes § 13-21-102, these are not meant to compensate the victim but to punish the defendant for willful, wanton, or malicious behavior. This is a powerful tool for holding corporations accountable and deterring them from harming others in the future.
How Comparative Fault Affects Claims
Nursing homes try to shift blame by claiming the resident was responsible for their own injury, for instance, arguing “they were frail” or “they shouldn’t have tried to get up.” Colorado’s modified comparative negligence rule (C.R.S. 13-21-111) states that you may still recover damages as long as the resident was less than 50% at fault. However, any compensation will be reduced by their percentage of fault.
A skilled lawyer is needed to fight back against this blame-shifting and ensure the facility is held responsible for its failures.
How Nursing Home Abuse Claims Work in Denver
Pursuing a claim requires a detailed understanding of both the medical and legal standards that govern long-term care facilities. Our job is to gather evidence to prove that the facility breached its duty of care and that this breach directly caused your loved one’s injuries.
The Legal Standard of Care
Nursing homes are held to high standards under both federal and state law. A claim arises from two types of failures:
- General Negligence: This relates to failures in the facility’s overall operations, such as administrative errors, chronic understaffing, or hiring unqualified employees.
- Medical Malpractice: This involves negligence by a licensed medical professional, like a nurse administering the wrong medication or a doctor failing to diagnose a serious condition.
Common Signs of Negligence and Abuse
If you see any of these red flags, it’s time to call a lawyer:
- Bedsores (Decubitus Ulcers): These painful wounds are almost always preventable with proper repositioning and care. They are a classic sign of a resident being left immobile for far too long, which may be due to understaffing.
- Unexplained Falls: While not all falls are preventable, frequent or unwitnessed falls may point to a lack of supervision, failure to use bed alarms, or an unsafe environment.
- Malnutrition and Dehydration: Sudden weight loss, sunken eyes, and dry skin are clear signs that a resident’s basic needs are not being met. This may be due to staff failing to assist residents who need help eating or a simple failure to provide adequate food and water.
- Medication Errors: This includes giving the wrong drug, the wrong dose, or missing doses entirely. In some cases, facilities may use medication as a chemical restraint to sedate residents and make them easier to manage.
- Unexplained Bruising or Fractures: Bruises on the wrists, arms, or torso are signs of rough handling during transfers or even physical assault. Any fracture that a facility cannot adequately explain warrants immediate investigation.
Who Can File a Claim?
A claim is typically filed by:
- The resident themselves, if they are cognitively able to participate in the process.
- A person holding a Power of Attorney (POA) or a legally appointed guardian acting on the resident’s behalf.
- Surviving family members who file a wrongful death lawsuit if the abuse or neglect led to the resident’s death.
The Statute of Limitations
In Colorado, you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit for nursing home abuse.
While this may seem like a long time, we advise acting quickly. Evidence like staff schedules, internal records, and security footage disappears, and memories of witnesses fade. The sooner we begin an investigation, the stronger your case will be.
Where Elder Neglect Occurs in Denver
The Denver Metro Landscape
The rapid growth of the Denver metro area has put a significant strain on the entire healthcare system, including elder care. Facilities across the Front Range struggle with staffing shortages. Compounded by the high cost of living, staff turnover is a persistent problem, and high turnover is one of the leading predictors of resident neglect.
Facility Types
Different types of facilities present different risks.
- Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs): These facilities provide a higher level of medical care. As a result, they are where we see cases of medical neglect, such as untreated infections, medication errors, and severe bedsores.
- Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs): With a focus on residential support over clinical care, these facilities may have lower staffing levels and less medical supervision. This leads to injuries from falls, elopement (wandering off), and a failure to recognize a resident’s declining health.
Systemic Failures
Many local Denver nursing homes have been acquired by large, for-profit national chains. A common business model for these corporations is to cut staff to the bare minimum required by law to maximize profit margins. This business decision leads to what is known as the weekend effect, where injuries, falls, and medical emergencies spike on Saturdays and Sundays due to dangerously low staffing levels.
The Corporate Defense Strategy: Dealing with Insurance
A nursing home is a business, and its insurance provider is driven by profit. Every dollar paid out on a claim is a dollar less for their bottom line. From the moment an injury is reported, their corporate machinery kicks in with one goal: to limit their financial exposure. They may sound caring and concerned on the phone, but their strategy is to “Delay, Deny, Defend.“
What to Look Out For
- The Charting Defense: The facility may point to its records and claim proper care was given because a nurse charted it. We know how to compare those charts against the actual medical evidence to reveal inconsistencies and neglect.
- Blaming Pre-Existing Conditions: Their lawyers might argue that the resident’s decline was an unavoidable consequence of being old and frail. Our job is to show that it was the facility’s negligence—not age—that caused the specific injury.
- The Lowball Offer: They may offer a quick, small settlement to cover immediate medical bills. This is almost always an attempt to get you to sign away your rights before you understand the full, long-term cost of the injury.
- Binding Arbitration Clauses: Buried in the admission paperwork is a clause that forces you to give up your right to a jury trial, sending your case instead to a private, binding arbitration system that favors the corporation. We have experience challenging these unfair clauses in court.
What to Do After Discovering Abuse
Once your loved one is safe, there are steps you should take to protect their rights and preserve evidence for a potential claim.
- Document Everything: Start a journal. Write down dates, times, the names of staff members you speak with, and what was said. Note every injury you see and every concern you have.
- Secure Medical Records: Formally request a complete copy of your loved one’s chart from the facility. Getting a copy now creates a snapshot of the records before they are updated or altered.
- Take Photographs: Use your phone to take clear, well-lit pictures of any injuries like bruises or bedsores. Also, photograph the condition of the room, soiled bedding, or any other signs of neglect. Back these photos up somewhere safe.
- Do Not Sign Anything: Do not sign any incident reports, settlement offers, or release forms from the facility without having a lawyer review them first.
- Stay off Social Media: Refrain from posting about the situation on Facebook or other social media platforms. The facility’s defense lawyers will use your posts against you.
FAQ for Denver Nursing Home Abuse
Yes, absolutely. If you believe your loved one is in danger, their safety is the top priority. Moving them to a safer facility will not harm your legal case; in fact, it shows that you took reasonable steps to protect them from further harm.
File a formal complaint with the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE). Reporting abuse is a vital step, but it is separate from filing a civil lawsuit to recover damages for your loved one’s injuries.
In cases involving residents with dementia or significant cognitive impairment, a resident may be legally incapable of giving consent. Such a situation is almost always considered sexual abuse, and the facility is liable for it.
Yes. While these cases are more difficult to prove, emotional and verbal abuse are actionable. If the abuse caused a documented psychological decline, severe depression, or withdrawal, you may have a strong claim for emotional distress.
We pursue claims against the corporation under a legal principle called vicarious liability, which holds an employer responsible for the actions of its employees. We also investigate whether the facility itself was negligent in its hiring, training, or supervision practices.
Yes. Colorado law caps, or limits, non-economic damages and punitive damages you can recover in a personal injury lawsuit, including those against a nursing home.
- Non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, adjust periodically for inflation but currently have a limit of approximately $642,000 for standard cases.
- Punitive damages are typically capped at the amount of the actual damages, as outlined in Colorado Revised Statutes § 13-21-102.5.
A knowledgeable attorney understands how to structure your claim to maximize recovery within these legal limits.
Yes. If a resident dies as a direct result of the nursing home’s abuse or neglect, surviving family members can file a wrongful death lawsuit. In Colorado, only certain individuals—such as the surviving spouse, children, or heirs—can bring a wrongful death claim. The Statute of Limitations for these cases is typically two years from the date of death.
This type of claim seeks compensation for the family’s loss, including medical costs, funeral expenses, and non-economic damages, under Colorado Revised Statutes § 13-21-203.
Don’t Let Them Dismiss Your Family’s Pain
The facility and its insurance company are betting that you are too tired, too grief-stricken, or too intimidated by the legal system to fight back. They are hoping you will just accept their explanation and walk away. Proving them wrong is how you get justice. We will help you send a clear message that this kind of neglect will not be tolerated in our Denver community.
Take the first step toward justice today. Contact Born & McCaffrey Injury Law for a confidential, no-obligation conversation about your options. Our number is (303) 800-6996.
Born and Mccaffrey did a spectacular job handling my case. I was completely unequipped to handle anything of this sort on my own and Michael did an amazing job at communicating to me what exactly was happening during each step of the process while making sure I was well prepared. I feel so much better having this all behind me and can’t thank the firm enough for their countless hours of work and negotiation on my behalf. — A. Hernandez
I recently had the opportunity to work with my attorney on a car accident case, and I am incredibly impressed with the outcome. Overall, I would highly recommend my attorney Peter to anyone in need of legal assistance for a car accident. Their professionalism, dedication, and knowledge made a challenging situation much more manageable, and I am grateful for their hard work and commitment to my case. — V. Cano
Mr. Born has been great with my case from the first phone call! Very knowledgeable and prompt when returning calls with answers to my questions. I never felt like I was just another case; he provided individualized care and gave me the information I needed to know the next steps to assure the best result for my injuries! — J. Cruz
I had an accident about almost a year ago and the fault insurance didn’t want to pay the entire bill. It’s been amazing working with them I really didn’t have to worry about a thing. Got everything settled and didn’t have to pay anything out of my pocket. Thank you very much to these gentleman!! — A. Gomez
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