How Long do Chicago Nursing Home Injury Lawsuits Take to Settle or go to Trial?

According to data collected from the Cook County Clerk of Court, civil cases (such as nursing home abuse and neglect lawsuits) filed in the Law Division generally take 18 to 24 months to make there way though the system to trial or other form of disposition.

Why Chicago Nursing Home Lawsuits May be Slow to Resolve

The nature of nursing home negligence cases generally cause them to be more time consuming and drawn out than other types of personal injury cases. Even before a nursing home case makes its way to court, much investigation needs to be done in order to determine what exactly happened at the facility and the nature of the patient's injuries.

This most often means that the records from the nursing home and subsequent medical facility need to be reviewed, organized and evaluated to assess the quality of the care that was provided—or not. Frequently, nursing home cases are notorious for errors made by staff and similarly for situations where staff fails to follow care plans regulating the care that each patient requires. A prevailing example of a facilities failure to adhere to a care plan resulting in a patient injury would be the development of a pressure sore or a fall at a facility where fall precautions were not implemented.

Every case is different, but in general they do take some time. Anytime you are dealing with medical legal issues and injuries, there is an added complexity to a lawsuit. However, some Chicago nursing home negligence cases may settle without the need for a lawsuit within a few months. Others that have ongoing medical expenses or are severe losses, as in wrongful death cases, may take years to finalize.

Preparing Every Case to Go To Trial

At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers LLC, our attorneys have handled nursing home negligence cases on behalf of families from across Illinois. In each case, an experienced attorney oversees the case from the time we are retained by a family, through the gathering of medical records, filing a lawsuit and ultimately the resolution of the case.

Our office has two on-staff nurses who assist in organizing client charts and identifying where errors were made with providing care or in charting itself. Having direct access to these professionals helps us in advancing the case smoothly through the various phases of pre-litigation and settlement negotiations. The majority of the time, our proactive approach to nursing home negligence cases results in cases getting resolved relatively quickly for a fair case valuation. However, there are times where despite our efforts, the case may still need to be tried before a judge or jury. In these circumstances, you can rest assured that we have done the work necessary to present the strongest possible case on your behalf.