A nursing home abuse lawyer helps families hold a care facility accountable when a loved one is hurt by mistreatment or neglect. At Rosenthal, Kooshoian & Lennon, LLP, we investigate what happened behind the facility's closed doors, protect your loved one, and pursue full compensation for the harm they suffered. When you trusted a nursing home to provide care and they failed, you have the right to answers and to hold them responsible.
Putting a parent or grandparent in a nursing home is a hard decision made on the promise of safety and dignity. When that promise is broken, the betrayal is personal, and the harm to a vulnerable person can be severe. Our Buffalo nursing home abuse attorneys stand up for residents and families across Western New York. This is one focus of our broader Buffalo personal injury practice, so the full weight of the firm is behind your case.
Call us 24/7 at 716-854-1300 to speak with a personal injury lawyer near you, or contact us for a FREE consultation.
Yes. New York law lets a resident, or a family member acting on their behalf, hold a facility accountable for physical abuse, neglect, financial exploitation, and other mistreatment. These claims can recover compensation for the resident's injuries, pain and suffering, and more, and they can name the facility, its staff, and its corporate owners.
These cases move on tight timelines and involve records the facility controls, so acting quickly matters. Getting a lawyer involved early lets us preserve evidence, document the harm, and make sure your loved one is safe while the case proceeds. Families are often unsure whether what they're seeing rises to a claim, and a conversation with us can answer that.
Abuse and neglect take many forms, and some are far more visible than others. The harm ranges from outright violence to the quiet failure to provide basic care, and financial exploitation of a vulnerable resident is its own category.
The mistreatment our Buffalo nursing home abuse lawyers see includes:
Whatever form it took, the question is whether the facility failed in its duty to keep your loved one safe, and who's responsible for that failure.
Abuse is an intentional act that harms a resident, while neglect is the failure to provide the care they need. Both are serious, and both can support a claim. In practice, neglect is more common, and it often flows from a facility that's understaffed and cutting corners.
The distinction matters for how a case is proven, but not for whether your loved one deserves accountability. A resident who develops a severe pressure sore from being left in bed, or who becomes malnourished from missed meals, has been harmed just as surely as one who was struck. We pursue both.
The signs are often physical, but not always. Unexplained bruises or injuries, bedsores, sudden weight loss, poor hygiene, and fear or withdrawal around certain staff are common red flags. Missing money or belongings, over-sedation, and a reluctance to talk about daily life can point to abuse too.
The signs our attorneys and families watch for include:
If you notice these signs, trust your instincts. Early action can protect your loved one and preserve the evidence a case depends on.
Bedsores, also called pressure ulcers, are wounds that develop when a resident is left in one position for too long without being moved. They are largely preventable with proper care, which is exactly why a serious bedsore is one of the clearest signs of neglect in a nursing home.
Left untreated, bedsores can progress to deep, infected wounds that threaten a resident's life. When a facility allows one to develop or worsen, that's a failure of basic care. Our bedsores lawyer page covers these cases in depth.
A fall is often a sign of neglect, not just an accident. Nursing homes are required to assess each resident's fall risk and take steps to protect them, and when they fail to, a fall can cause fractures, head injuries, or worse in a frail resident. These falls are frequently preventable.
Repeated or unexplained falls, especially with serious injuries, deserve a close look at whether the facility was doing its job. Our nursing home fall lawyer page explains how these cases work and how we prove the facility's failure.
Because a facility that doesn't have enough staff can't provide adequate care, no matter how good its intentions. Understaffing is the root of much nursing home neglect, and it's often a choice made to protect profits. When too few workers care for too many residents, people get left in bed, meals get missed, and warning signs go unnoticed.
Understaffing also breeds the frustration and burnout that can lead to outright abuse. Because it usually traces back to decisions made above the floor staff, the facility's owners and operators, holding the right parties accountable often means looking past the individual worker to the company that set the conditions. That's a core part of how we build these cases.
Often more than the individual who caused the harm. Responsibility can reach the nursing home itself, the corporation that owns and operates it, individual staff members, and sometimes third parties like a staffing agency or a contractor. Each is a potential source of accountability and coverage.
Many nursing homes are owned by large corporate chains that make the staffing and budget decisions driving neglect, and holding those companies responsible is often where the real accountability lies. We investigate the full ownership and management structure, because the party that caused the harm and the party that has the resources to answer for it aren't always the same.
Strong ones. New York gives nursing home residents specific legal rights to safe, dignified, and adequate care, and a facility that violates those rights can be held liable beyond ordinary negligence. Residents have the right to be free from abuse and neglect, to proper medical care, and to be treated with dignity.
These protections give families real leverage, because a facility that failed to meet the standards the law requires has to answer for it. Understanding and using those rights is part of what we bring to a nursing home case, and it's one reason these claims can be stronger than families expect.
Act quickly to protect your loved one and the evidence. Make sure they're safe, get them an independent medical evaluation, and document everything you can, photographs of injuries, notes on what you observed, and any concerning conditions. Report the abuse to the authorities, and call a lawyer before the facility can control the story.
In New York, you can report suspected abuse to Adult Protective Services, the state health department, and law enforcement, and you should. Request copies of your loved one's medical and care records before they can be altered, and avoid confronting the staff or facility directly, which can risk retaliation or lost evidence. Getting a lawyer involved early helps protect both your loved one and the case.
A nursing home abuse claim can recover the resident's medical bills, pain and suffering, and the loss of dignity that mistreatment causes, along with the cost of moving them to a safe facility and any stolen property. Where the conduct was especially egregious, punitive damages may be available, and if abuse or neglect caused a death, the family can pursue a wrongful death claim.
These cases are about more than money. They're about accountability and protecting other residents from the same harm. But full compensation matters, because it covers the care your loved one needs now and holds the facility responsible in the way it understands best. We pursue every category that applies.
Your family may have a wrongful death claim, brought through the estate, along with a survival action for what your loved one suffered before passing. Nursing home neglect that leads to death, from an untreated infection, a fall, or malnutrition, is among the most tragic and preventable losses there is.
Our wrongful death lawyer page explains how these claims work in New York, who can file, and what a family can recover. We handle them with the care a grieving family deserves, while pursuing full accountability.
It depends on the type of claim, and some deadlines are short. A neglect claim generally allows three years, but a claim based on an intentional act can carry a much shorter deadline, and a wrongful death claim generally allows two years. Because the deadlines vary and evidence disappears, this isn't something to put off.
The records that prove a nursing home case, staffing logs, care plans, inspection histories, are controlled by the facility and can be altered or lost. The sooner a lawyer can act to preserve them and file the right claims, the stronger your case.
We move quickly to protect your loved one and build the case. From the first days, we work to ensure their safety, preserve the medical and facility records, and investigate the facility's staffing and history, then build the claim and prepare it as if it's going to trial.
Our attorneys gather the medical records, care plans, and state inspection and complaint histories, interview staff and other families, and work with medical experts to connect the facility's failures to your loved one's harm. We identify every responsible party, including the corporate owners, handle the communications with their insurers, and file suit in New York State Supreme Court when they won't deal fairly. Most cases settle through negotiation or mediation, but we build each one for trial, and we keep these matters in house from start to finish.
We represent vulnerable residents and their families across Western New York, and we handle nursing home cases the same way we handle every case, in house, start to finish, through settlement, trial, and appeal. We know how these facilities operate, how to get the records they'd rather hide, and how to hold corporate owners accountable.
These cases call for a firm that treats a family's trust with the seriousness it deserves and isn't afraid to take on a large corporate chain. That's what we bring, along with compassion and straight answers in plain language, so you always know where things stand. You focus on your loved one. We'll handle the fight.
If you suspect a nursing home has abused or neglected someone you love in Buffalo or Western New York, the attorneys at Rosenthal, Kooshoian & Lennon, LLP are ready to help. Contact us for a free, confidential consultation, and a Buffalo nursing home abuse lawyer will review your concerns, explain your options, and help you protect your loved one, with no fee unless we recover for you.
Time is critical in these cases, both for your loved one's safety and for the evidence. The sooner we start, the more we can do to protect them, preserve the proof, and hold the facility accountable.
Call us 24/7 at 716-854-1300 to speak with a personal injury lawyer near you, or contact us for a FREE consultation.
Disclaimer: This page is for general information only and isn't legal advice. Reading it doesn't create an attorney client relationship. Laws and deadlines can change, and the rules described reflect New York law as of 2026. Every case is different, and prior results don't guarantee a similar outcome. For advice about a specific situation, please consult a licensed New York attorney.
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