[Flick Lives]

Smith would like to sue Fitchburg Healthcare over her mother’s death, but so far she has not found an attorney willing to help her.

“We are hearing that it would be an impossible lawsuit to take on,” Smith said.

The main hurdle is emergency state and federal laws designed to give long-term care facilities, hospitals and other health care providers broad immunity from legal actions related to their care during the pandemic.

—

Gov. Baker got campaign donations from nursing homes. He signed legislation exempting them from lawsuits during a pandemic. Very cozy.

[Alberta's Child]

Perhaps the biggest hurdle of all is that it’s impossible to document monetary losses in a cause of action related to the death of an elderly person. A wrongful death lawsuit involving a younger victim will include tangible financial losses such as a lifetime loss of income, added costs for family members who must now raise surviving children, etc.

None of these apply when the victim is elderly. In fact, when you sue someone over the death of a person in a nursing home, you are likely to face a legal team that specializes in a bizarre, morbid area of law where they will calculate all the money the plaintiffs have SAVED by having Grandma die at the age of 80 instead of surviving another ten years.

Since the big line items in the calculation of compensatory damages are gone, these cases must be built on vague, subjective measures of things like “loss of affection” that are much more difficult to quantify.