When someone else’s negligence causes a serious injury or death, bringing a lawsuit can do more than compensate the person or family who was harmed. A personal injury lawsuits, or wrongful death lawsuits, and medical malpractice cases can also uncover institutional failures that put others at risk and create accountability that leads to meaningful changes in policies, procedures, training, and safety practices.
At Plakas Mannos, our personal injury, medical malpractice, nursing home negligence, and wrongful death attorneys have met with thousands of injured people and grieving families over our nearly 70-year history. One of the most common things we hear is simple: our clients do not want what happened to them or their loved one to happen to someone else.
Through personal injury lawsuits and other negligence claims, holding negligent parties accountable can be one of the most effective ways to accomplish that goal.
How Can Personal Injury Lawsuits Improve Safety and Lead to Institutional Change?
Personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, and nursing home negligence cases involve a discovery process that can uncover unsafe practices, inadequate training, deficient policies and procedures, and other failures that contributed to an injury or death. They can also reveal warnings that the institutions or individuals had – and ignored – prior to the injury or death.
Sometimes, what happened is not the result of a single mistake or isolated poor decision. Personal injury lawsuits and other negligence litigation can reveal broader, more systemic problems within an organization—gaps in training, communication, supervision, staffing, or safety procedures—that may put others at risk of suffering similar harm.
A lawsuit provides an opportunity to examine those failures closely. Documents are produced. Witnesses are questioned under oath. Policies and practices are scrutinized. Those responsible are required to answer difficult questions about what happened, why it happened, and what could have been done differently.
That process can identify problems that need to be corrected and lead businesses, healthcare facilities, nursing homes, and other organizations to improve their policies, procedures, training, and safety practices. Those changes can help protect future patients, residents, customers, employees, and families.
Meaningful change, however, rarely happens simply because a problem exists. Often, it takes someone willing to identify the problem, ask the difficult questions, and demand accountability. In some cases, it takes someone brave enough to pursue a personal injury lawsuit or other legal action to demand that change.
What Is the Margaret Policy?
The Margaret Policy is one example of how a family’s pursuit of accountability led to changes intended to protect others.
Margaret was the mother of one of our clients. Following her death, her family retained Plakas Mannos’ team, including Lee Plakas, Megan Frantz Oldham, and Maria Klutinoty Edwards, and medical malpractice and nursing home negligence litigation followed.
As part of the culmination of the nursing home negligence case, a new policy was implemented in Margaret’s name with an important purpose: to help prevent what happened to Margaret from happening to another nursing home resident.
The Margaret Policy required nursing home personnel to be educated about the facts and circumstances of Margaret’s case and included policies and procedures designed to prevent similar harm in the future.
For Margaret’s family, pursuing the case meant seeking justice for their mother. But the result also meant that the circumstances surrounding her death would be used to educate others and improve practices for future residents.
The Margaret Policy demonstrates how legal action following a serious injury or wrongful death can extend beyond an individual case and encourage changes that protect others.
How Personal Injury Lawsuits Can Lead to Safer Communities
Financial compensation is an important part of our civil justice system. People who suffer serious injuries—and families who lose loved ones—deserve to be compensated for what they have lost and what they have been through.
But for many of our clients, justice also means something more. They want answers. They want accountability. And they want to know that what happened to them or their family will be less likely to happen to someone else.
Personal injury lawsuits, wrongful death claims, and medical malpractice litigation can help accomplish these goals by bringing negligent practices to light and encouraging meaningful changes that improve safety.
At Plakas Mannos, we share that goal. We are committed to pursuing justice that compensates our clients for what they have been through while also seeking accountability that can make the institutions and communities around us safer.
If you or a loved one has been seriously harmed by negligence, the attorneys at Plakas Mannos can help you understand your legal options, find answers, and pursue accountability.
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