About Us
At the Law Offices of Barry G. Doyle, P.C., we believe that nursing home abuse and neglect cases are important cases for many reasons and have made investigating and prosecuting these cases an intense focus of our professional lives. There are at least three major reasons why these are important cases:
- They bring about change - we have had multiple cases where either policies and procedures are the nursing home were changed and/or the staff was retrained as a result of the information brought out during the course of the lawsuit;
- We answer questions for families about what happened and why and whether the family could have done anything to bring about a different outcome. We usually find that the failure that led to the tragic outcome was a direct result of failures in the care that had been going on for weeks or even months before things finally went wrong and that the family had nothing to do with it and should not bear any unwarranted feelings of guilt of responsibility for what happened to their loved one;
- We hold nursing homes accountable for the poor care they provided.
Barry Doyle has been practicing law exclusively in the area of plaintiff’s personal injury work for over 27 years and has tried many cases to conclusion in jury trials, bench trials, and arbitration hearings. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, and the American Association for Justice, where he is a member of the Nursing Home Litigation Group.
He is also a published author on legal topics and has been asked to give lectures on nursing home abuse and neglect cases and wrongful death litigation for continuing legal education organizations. He is a cum laude graduate of Loyola University School of Law and is a former Adjunct Professor there.
We handle cases throughout the State of Illinois and have appeared in court in over 40 different Illinois counties including:
Stephenson
Winnebago
McHenry
Lake
Kane
DuPage
Cook
Will
Kankakee
Iroquois
Ford
Champaign
Livingston
Grundy
LaSalle
Woodford
McLean
Logan
Macon
Sangamon
Macoupin
Madison
St. Clair
Tazewell
Peoria
Knox
Henry
Whiteside
Rock Island
Schuyler
Adams
Perry
Jackson
Williamson
Effingham
Jasper
Clay
Wayne
We offer video conferencing for clients outside the Chicago area, as well as electronic signature options to make things easy for clients who live too far away for easy office visits.
We have a long track record of success in handling nursing home abuse and neglect cases, including these settlements:
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement on behalf of a nursing home resident who suffered multiple fractures in a fall and then additional fractures during rehabilitation. Client had been assessed as a fall risk, but the nursing home staff elected to not perform a fall prevention care plan. (Cook County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement for case involving two separate incidents involving a geriatric patient with severe mental illness. First incident involved a fall from a wheelchair due to inadequate supervision, resulting in injuries to her cervical spine. Eight days later, she choked to death on food despite the use of a 1:1 sitter. Nursing home was unable to explain what food she choked on or how she obtained it outside of normal meal hours. Staff further failed to recognize that the client was choking, resulting in in effective efforts to resuscitate her. (Cook County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement reached on behalf of the estate of a nursing home resident who died due to a stroke. On the evening when the stroke occurred, the resident also experienced a fall. Nurses are required to perform frequent, repeat neuro checks on the resident after a fall, but none were done in this instance. As a result, the stroke caused additional brain damage before the resident was transferred to the hospital, long after the time for administering a stroke-reversing TPA treatment had passed. (Cook County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement for nursing home resident who fell during physical therapy when therapist did not have a fall prevention plan and did not use gait belt, suffering laceration which because infected with MRSA, leading to lengthy hospitalization (DuPage County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement on behalf of the estate of a nursing home resident who choked to death while being fed by an aide. The resident suffered from Parkinson’s which causes a gradual decline in the ability to swallow. A speech therapy assessment had been obtained two years earlier in which a number of recommendations were made regarding how to feed the resident safely. However, these recommendations were never incorporated into the resident care plan. (DuPage County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - We reached a settlement on behalf of the estate of a nursing home resident who developed pressure sores after he was switched from a standard wheelchair to a Tilt in Space wheelchair. Before the switch, he was able to self propel in his wheelchair, but could not in the Tilt in Space, and his efforts to do so exposed his buttocks to friction and shear, resulting in deep tissue injuries which required surgery. Suit alleged that the Tilt in Space wheelchair acted as a restraint for which there no consent or physician order and that the staff failed to recognize that the resident was being exposed to friction and shear in his efforts to self-propel in the Tilt in Space chair. (Cook County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement was reached in behalf of the estate of a nursing home resident who choked on a hot dog while being fed lunch. Suit alleged that the speech therapist failed to provide appropriate dietary restrictions when she was transitioned from a puree diet to a general diet and that the staff failed to cut the hot dog up into small enough pieces as a paramedic testified that he removed a three-inch long piece of hot dog from the client’s airway. (Macoupin County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement was reached on behalf of the estate of a 102-year old man who was admitted to the nursing home for rehabilitation for lymphedema before he was expected to move to Florida to live with his son. The resident fell after getting out of bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night after staff failed to promptly respond to his activated call light. Investigation further revealed the staff was aware that he was frequently up without assistance but failed to modify his care plan. (Stephenson County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement reached on behalf of the estate of retired security officer who was admitted to the nursing for rehabilitation following surgery to treat an abscess on his jaw. The resident was still demonstrating signs of confusion related to the infection, and before leaving to go home, his family secured a promise from the nursing home staff that they would use a bed alarm. However, there were no additional working bed alarms in the facility. The resident got out of bed that morning without assistance and fell, hitting his head on the floor. He suffered a brain bleed which resulted in his death later that day. (Macon County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement reached on behalf of a nursing home resident who was admitted for rehabilitation after a fall at home in which she suffered a broken hip. She was left unattended while seated on an elevated commode chair and fell. The other hip was broken in the fall and required surgery. She declined rapidly after the operation, dying two weeks after the fall. (Winnebago County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement reached on behalf of the estate of a nursing home resident who developed a deep tissue injury on her heel after experiencing an episode of marked lower extremity edema. While she was receiving wound care for that, the staff asked for an received an order for a high dose of tramadol for pain control despite the fact that the resident was not making significant complaints of pain. At the same time that the order for the Tramadol was obtained, her physician also entered an order for an increased dose of Lasix, a diuretic. The combination of the medications resulted in the resident becoming severely dehydrated, resulting in acute kidney injury and metabolic acidosis which resulted in her death. (McLean County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - We reached a settlement on behalf of a nursing home resident who was admitted to the defendant nursing home from the community and was placed in the shelter care unit where fall risk assessments and fall prevention care planning was not done, nor was it required by state regulations. She fell her third night in the facility, suffering a fractured hip and shoulder. Surgery was performed on the fractured hip but she suffered a post-operative stroke, resulting in her death ten days after the fall. Suit alleged that the admissions staff failed to appropriately assess her care needs and had a proper assessment been performed, she would have been admitted to the skilled care unit where fall risk assessments and fall prevention care planning would have been required. (Winnebago County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - The client was wheelchair-bound with an order in place for a seat belt due to poor trunk control and a history of falls. The seat belt was not on, and the client fell forward while reaching for the edge of a tablecloth. As she fell forward out of the wheelchair, she grabbed the edge of the tablecloth, pulling the television set that was on top of the tablecloth on top of her. Aides who witnessed the fall took the television off her and placed her back in her wheelchair. The fall was not reported to the doctor for 10 days. Following surgery to repair the broken hip suffered in the fall, she suffered bed sores and other complications leading to her death. Settlement represented available policy limits. (Wayne County)
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect - Settlement on behalf of a nursing home resident who suffered a fractured hip in a fall. The defendant nursing home was the third nursing home that the client had been admitted to, all of which assessed her as being a fall risk and had fall prevention care plans in place. However, the fall prevention care plan at the defendant nursing home lack many of the elements of the care plan which had been put into place at the other two nursing homes. Resident died of unrelated causes approximately five months after the fall. (Cook County)