A bedsore lawyer helps families when a loved one develops a serious pressure sore in a nursing home, because a bad bedsore is one of the clearest signs of neglect there is. At Rosenthal, Kooshoian & Lennon, LLP, we prove that the facility failed to provide basic care and hold it accountable for the harm. Bedsores are almost always preventable, so when a serious one develops, someone didn't do their job.
A pressure sore doesn't happen to a resident who's being properly cared for. It happens when someone is left in the same position for too long, without the repositioning, skin checks, and attention that basic care requires. Our Buffalo bedsore attorneys know how to trace a wound back to the neglect that caused it. This page is part of our broader nursing home abuse and 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.
Bedsores, also called pressure sores, pressure ulcers, or decubitus ulcers, are wounds that form when constant pressure cuts off blood flow to the skin and the tissue beneath it. They develop over bony areas like the tailbone, hips, heels, and elbows, on residents who can't move or reposition themselves without help.
What makes them different from an ordinary injury is that they don't come from a single event. A bedsore develops over hours and days of a resident being left in one position, which is exactly why a serious one points to a failure of care rather than an accident.
Almost always, yes. Bedsores are highly preventable with proper care, and advanced ones are widely recognized as an event that shouldn't happen when a facility is doing its job. When a resident develops a serious pressure sore, or an existing one is allowed to worsen, it usually means the basic care they were owed wasn't provided.
That's the heart of a bedsore case. The facility knew, or should have known, that an immobile resident was at risk, and the standard steps to prevent a sore are well established and simple. A deep, infected wound is evidence that those steps were skipped, and it's the kind of neglect our Buffalo bedsore lawyers hold facilities accountable for.
Bedsores are measured in stages by how deep and severe they are. Knowing the stage matters, because it shows how far the neglect was allowed to progress before anyone acted.
The stages generally run like this:
A Stage 1 sore caught early can heal. A Stage 3 or 4 sore represents days of missed care, and those are the cases where the harm, and the facility's failure, are most serious.
With basic, well-known care. Preventing pressure sores means repositioning an immobile resident regularly, checking the skin for early warning signs, keeping it clean and dry, providing good nutrition and hydration, and using pressure-relieving mattresses and cushions when needed. None of this is complicated or new.
That's exactly why a serious bedsore is so telling. The prevention steps are standard in every nursing home, and a facility that follows them rarely sees an advanced sore. When one develops anyway, it usually means a resident wasn't being turned, wasn't being checked, or wasn't getting the nutrition their skin needed, all failures of the care the facility promised to provide.
Because they can turn deadly. An untreated or worsening bedsore can become deeply infected, and that infection can spread to the bloodstream as sepsis or into the bone, both of which are life-threatening. Advanced sores can require surgery, cause the loss of tissue, and in the worst cases, lead to amputation or death.
What starts as a patch of red skin can, if ignored, become a wound that threatens a frail resident's life. That progression is rarely fast, which means there were opportunities to intervene that the facility missed. The severity of the outcome often reflects just how long the neglect went unaddressed.
Residents who can't move on their own. Bedridden residents, wheelchair users, and those with limited mobility, poor circulation, or inadequate nutrition are the most vulnerable. These are precisely the residents a nursing home is supposed to watch most closely.
Because the at-risk residents are so easy to identify, there's little excuse for a facility to be caught off guard. A proper care plan assesses each resident's risk and puts prevention in place from day one. When that doesn't happen for an obviously vulnerable resident, the failure is even harder to defend.
Usually the facility and the company behind it. Responsibility can reach the nursing home itself, the corporation that owns and operates it, and the staff responsible for the resident's care. Because bedsores so often trace back to understaffing, the owners who set those staffing levels frequently share the blame.
Many facilities are run by large corporate chains whose budget and staffing decisions create the conditions for neglect, and holding those companies accountable is often where the real responsibility lies. We investigate the full care record and the ownership structure, because the party that caused the harm and the party with the resources to answer for it aren't always the same.
Yes. A serious pressure sore that developed or worsened because of inadequate care is a form of nursing home neglect, and you can bring a claim against the facility to hold it accountable. These claims can recover compensation for the resident's suffering and medical care, and they fit within the broader protections New York gives nursing home residents.
A serious bedsore fits squarely within the broader protections New York gives nursing home residents against neglect. It's often the first visible sign that something is wrong, and it can open a broader look at the care your loved one has been receiving, including whether other residents are being failed the same way.
A bedsore claim can recover the resident's medical bills for treating the wound and any complications, compensation for their pain and suffering, and the loss of dignity the neglect caused. Where the facility's conduct was especially egregious, punitive damages may be available, and if a bedsore infection led to death, the family can pursue a wrongful death claim.
The medical costs alone can be significant, because advanced sores may require surgery, wound care, and treatment for infection. Beyond the bills, these cases are about accountability and making sure the facility can't do the same to the next resident. We pursue every category of compensation that applies.
Your family may have a wrongful death claim. When a pressure sore becomes infected and that infection turns to sepsis or spreads to the bone, it can be fatal, and a death that flowed from preventable neglect is exactly what a wrongful death claim addresses. It can be brought through the estate, along with a survival action for what your loved one suffered.
Our wrongful death lawyer page explains how these claims work in New York. Losing a loved one to something as preventable as a bedsore is devastating, and we handle these cases with the care a grieving family deserves.
Generally three years from the date of injury for a neglect claim, though some related claims can carry shorter deadlines, and a wrongful death claim generally allows two years. Because the deadlines vary and the facility controls the records, this isn't something to put off.
The care records that prove a bedsore case, the repositioning logs, the skin assessments, the care plans, are held by the facility and can be altered or lost. The sooner a lawyer can act to preserve them, the stronger your case.
Document it and get medical help right away. Photograph the sore, note when you first saw it and how it changes, and ask for an independent medical evaluation. Request your loved one's care records, report your concerns to the facility and the authorities, and talk to a lawyer before the records can be changed.
A bedsore is a warning sign worth taking seriously the moment you see it, both for your loved one's health and for the case. Photographs over time can show how a wound was allowed to progress, and the facility's own records often reveal the missed care. Getting a lawyer involved early helps preserve all of it.
We prove the neglect through the facility's own records. From the first days, we preserve the medical and care documentation, investigate the facility's staffing and history, and work with medical experts to show that the sore was preventable and that the standard steps weren't taken.
Our attorneys gather the care plans, repositioning and skin-assessment logs, and state inspection and complaint records, and connect the facility's failures to your loved one's wound. 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 bedsore and neglect cases the same way we handle every case, in house, start to finish, through settlement, trial, and appeal. We know how to get the records facilities would rather hide and how to hold corporate owners accountable.
These cases call for a firm that understands both the medical picture and how these facilities operate, and that 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 your loved one developed a serious bedsore in a nursing home 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 bedsore lawyer will review what happened, explain your options, and help you protect your loved one, with no fee unless we recover for you.
Time matters, both for your loved one's health and for the evidence. The sooner we start, the more we can do to preserve the records and hold the facility accountable. If your loved one also suffered a fall in the facility, our nursing home fall lawyer page covers that overlap as well.
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.
Our results are driven by personalized strategies that are hand-crafted to fit your needs.
You’re not just a client to us. You are our partner, and we would be honored to make you our next success story.
As former prosecutors and experienced attorneys, we can anticipate how your case will be handled by the other side and tactics insurance companies will use.