Overview
Overview
O’Hagan Meyer defends long-term care and senior care providers in high-exposure litigation, regulatory proceedings, and operational disputes, representing clients in state and federal courts nationwide, as well as in arbitration proceedings, administrative hearings, and government investigations.
We represent skilled nursing facilities, assisted-living facility operators, post-acute care providers, healthcare systems, insurers, and healthcare professionals in matters arising from resident care, staffing, facility operations, and regulatory oversight. Our team handles negligence, wrongful death, abuse and neglect, catastrophic injury, and institutional liability claims. These claims often involve elderly and vulnerable populations and challenge the adequacy of nursing care provided, care planning, supervision, medication management, infection control, fall prevention, and other alleged failures in care.
By integrating our long-term care capabilities with our firm’s broader healthcare litigation, medical malpractice, professional liability, and employment defense practices, we address the clinical, operational, regulatory, and workplace issues that frequently intersect in these matters. Our attorneys understand the realities of care delivery and have the experience to convey those realities to mediators, judges, regulators, and juries. These realities include staffing constraints, evolving resident conditions, documentation practices, transitions and communication among care providers, and urgent clinical decision-making. We know that nursing is more than what is written on a page.
We work closely with medical, geriatric, nursing, surgical, and wound-care experts to assess adherence to the nursing standard of care, evaluate the causation of injuries and death, and develop alternative explanations and causes for adverse outcomes, whether complications associated with aging, underlying conditions, or complex medical needs. Because each resident and care setting presents distinct challenges, we tailor our defense strategies to the specific facts and circumstances of each case.
Beyond defending nurses and nursing facilities, we represent nursing facilities in regulatory investigations, compliance disputes, and matters involving federal and state healthcare requirements. We also advise on internal investigations, policy development, corrective action measures, risk mitigation, and litigation avoidance strategies designed to address recurring issues and reduce future exposure.
O’Hagan Meyer combines trial-ready advocacy with practical insight into the operational, regulatory, employment, and reputational pressures long-term care providers face. Our attorneys translate complex clinical and care issues into clear, persuasive narratives for judges, juries, and regulators while providing business-focused guidance aligned with the clients’ goals, whether a negotiated resolution or defense through trial.
Experience
Experience
- Represented a skilled nursing facility in a highly emotional wrongful death trial, securing a jury win on most claims and limiting the remaining negligence damages to a modest six‑figure amount, despite the plaintiff asking the jury for $10 million. The case focused on alleged failures in heel care, identifying skin breakdown and a death following an amputation.
- Resolved a wrongful death case for a CILA group home for a reasonable amount by showing that a caregiver responded more fully to a choking emergency than security video footage appeared to show. By developing the caregiver’s testimony, we demonstrated that the black‑and‑white video did not fairly capture her actions or the extent of her response.
- Settled a wrongful death case on behalf of an assisted living facility for a reasonable amount after recognizing through thorough investigation that one key nursing witness was disgruntled and would intentionally undermine the defense.
- Defended a multi‑location client against claims of sex discrimination and alleged violations of the Pregnancy Fairness Act, achieving favorable outcomes in agency investigations brought by nurses, CNAs, and other employees who claimed they were unfairly disciplined or terminated.
- Negotiated an agreement resolving the breach of contract claims asserted by a landlord against two nursing facility operators in agreement that included rent abatement, payout to nursing facility operators, and structured transfer of licenses.
