Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect:
Finding the Right Attorney
HOW ONE NURSING HOME "EXPERT" DEFENSE LAWYER RECOMMENDED THAT LAWYERS DEFENDING NURSING HOMES REFUSE TO TURN OVER DOCUMENTS RELEVANT TO THE LAWSUIT
Attorneys have an ethical obligation to be a conduit of information unless the information is not relevant to the litigation or is privileged.
In March 2004, Donald Davidson was at a New Jersey continuing legal education seminar. The seminar was videotaped. At the seminar Davidson spoke, in part, about how a nursing home defense lawyer should approach discovery.
Discovery is the mechanism through which one party to a lawsuit obtains information from another party. Attorneys have an ethical obligation to be a conduit of information unless the information is not relevant to the litigation or is privileged.
Notwithstanding this obligation, Davidson advised defense attorney to resist turning over documents in discovery. He said, "I can't tell you how much I would encourage you defense lawyers not to give over any documents willingly other than the [resident's] chart. *** I mean, we try to fight everything-incident reports anything, logs. Because we find that fifty percent of the time *** [plaintiff's attorneys] never make a motion and they never get it."
Davidson summarized his approach to nursing home discovery as, "Deny documents." Davidson recommended that the defense lawyer claim the documents are privileged because there is a good chance your opponent won't make a motion seeking them.
These statements demonstrate why a nursing home case must be prosecuted by a dedicated, tenacious lawyer who has experience taking cases through jury trial.
