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Miami Nursing Home
Abuse Lawyer

Written by Prosper Shaked, personal injury attorney, North Miami Beach · Updated October 23, 2026

A bedsore that never healed, a fall nobody explained, a parent who goes quiet when a certain aide walks in. Florida law spells out what a nursing home owes your loved one, and gives the resident a specific legal claim when the facility falls short and that failure causes harm. You talk to a real attorney, usually me, on that first call or later the same day.

Call (305) 694-2676 Free case review
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No fee unless I recover money for you. If there is no recovery you owe no fee and no costs. When we recover, case costs are paid from the recovery.

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What to do if you suspect abuse of a loved one in a nursing home

Reporting abuse and pursuing a claim are separate paths, and you can do both, starting with the first step if anyone is in danger right now.

01

Call 911 if anyone is in danger

If you believe a resident is in immediate danger, the first call is not to a lawyer, it is to 911.

02

Call the Florida Abuse Hotline

The Florida Abuse Hotline, operated by the Department of Children and Families, takes reports of suspected abuse or neglect at 1-800-962-2873.

03

File a complaint with AHCA

The Agency for Health Care Administration licenses the facility. You can file a complaint at 1-888-419-3456, and a report can trigger a state investigation that may help your case.

04

Contact the Long-Term Care Ombudsman

The State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program advocates for residents and can be reached at 1-888-831-0404. A report creates an independent record.

05

Call about preserving the records

A short call tells you what has to be preserved right now and whether what you noticed is worth pursuing.

Call (305) 694-2676

Do you have a nursing home abuse case?

If you can answer yes to these two questions about someone you love, it is worth a call, even if you are not sure what happened.

1

Does your loved one live, or did they live, in a Florida nursing home or assisted living facility?

2

Were they injured, neglected or mistreated there?

Not sure? Call anyway. Usually I can tell you on that one call.

Yes, call Prosper now

The consultation is free · Available 24/7

What happens when you call

01

You talk to the attorney

Not an intake screener. You reach an attorney on that first call or later the same day, and the consultation is free.

02

You find out where you stand

We walk through what you noticed, where your loved one lives or lived and what the facility has told you. Usually I can tell you on that one call whether it is worth pursuing.

03

We preserve the records

If you hire us, we move quickly to demand that the facility preserve the complete resident chart: care plans, nursing notes, wound-care logs, medication records and incident reports.

04

How our law firm investigates a nursing home case

  • Pull the facility’s inspection history, deficiency citations and complaint investigations from the Agency for Health Care Administration.
  • Compare what the care plan said the resident needed with what the records show the nursing home staff documented.
  • Obtain staffing and scheduling records for the shifts that matter, to test whether there was enough staff to provide the required care.
  • Retain experts matched to the injury, such as wound care, geriatric medicine or nursing standards.
  • Prepare the presuit notice the statute requires, with the certificate of counsel, and use the 75-day period to press for an early resolution.
Call (305) 694-2676

Prosper Shaked,
Miami nursing home abuse attorney

North Miami Beach
  • The Best Lawyers in America® 2026–2027: Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs
  • Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America, 2022–2025
  • Super Lawyers Rising Stars, 2019–2026: Personal Injury – General: Plaintiff
  • Avvo 10.0 “Superb” rating
  • National Trial Lawyers, Top 40 Under 40
  • Former Prosecutor

I am Prosper Shaked, the attorney behind Prosper Injury Attorneys in North Miami Beach. I represent nursing home abuse victims, neglect victims and their families throughout Florida, including claims against assisted living facilities. Call (305) 694-2676, or read more about me.

What clients say about working with Prosper Injury Attorneys.

Most of the people who hire me were in the worst week of their lives when they first called. Many of them have written about what it was like to work with my office, and those reviews are on Google, where I would rather you read them than take my word for it.

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What is a nursing home abuse case worth?

Three questions tell us most of what we need on the first call.

1

How serious the harm was, and whether it caused a death

The injury, its treatment and its lasting effect on the resident drive the value; where neglect causes death, the claim can include the losses that follow a wrongful death.

2

How clearly the records tie the failure to the harm

The case usually lives in the gap between what the care plan said the resident needed and what the records show the staff documented.

3

Whether the evidence supports punitive damages

Florida allows punitive damages only for intentional misconduct or gross negligence, and only after a court finds a reasonable basis for the claim.

My office has recovered millions of dollars for injured Floridians and their families, including multiple seven-figure recoveries in catastrophic injury cases. Be wary of anyone who quotes you a number before they have read the facility’s records. The honest answer to “what is my case worth” starts with the chart, the care plan and the staffing records.

  • Medical expenses
  • Relocation costs
  • Pain and suffering
  • Loss of dignity
  • Wrongful death losses

Want to know what your case is worth?

Call and Prosper will walk through what you noticed, where your loved one lives or lived and what the facility has told you, usually on that first call.

(305) 694-2676 Free case review

Three numbers that decide nursing home cases in Florida

2 years

Deadline to file

A nursing home claim must generally be brought within two years from the incident, or from when it was discovered or should have been discovered with reasonable diligence.

Fla. Stat. § 400.0236

4 years

The outer limit

A claim can never be brought more than four years after the incident, unless the facility fraudulently concealed or intentionally misrepresented what happened: then up to two years from discovery, never more than six years from the incident.

Fla. Stat. § 400.0236

75 days

Required wait before suit

No lawsuit can be filed for 75 days after the presuit notice goes out, and sending the notice pauses the deadline for the full 75 days.

Fla. Stat. § 400.0233

Avoid these

Common mistakes that weaken a nursing home claim

These mistakes can quietly weaken a nursing home claim before a lawyer has seen the facility’s records.

  • Accepting “unavoidable.” A facility will often call a bedsore, a fall or weight loss unavoidable; sometimes it is, often it is not, and the care plan and the charting can prove or disprove it.
  • Waiting. The deadline is generally two years from the incident, or from when it was discovered or should have been discovered, and the discovery rule and the hard cutoff pull in different directions. The safest assumption is that the clock is already running.
  • Treating it as medical malpractice. A claim for the facility’s failure to provide adequate care runs under Chapter 400, with its own rules, deadline and presuit process, not under the medical malpractice statute.
  • Assuming a report starts the case. Reporting to the hotline or the state is separate from a lawsuit. It does not replace the presuit notice the statute requires before a lawsuit can be filed.

Who can be sued for nursing home neglect in Florida

One of the first things we do is identify every party the statute allows you to hold responsible. Under Fla. Stat. § 400.023, the claim reaches the licensee, its management or consulting company, its managing employees and its direct caregivers, whether employees or contractors.

The nursing home

In the simple case, the facility where your loved one lived is one company. Florida nursing homes are commonly split among separate operating, management and property companies, and those entities can control the staffing and budget decisions at the heart of a neglect case.

01

The licensee

Responsible when its nursing staff fail to observe, assess or provide adequate care.

02

The management or consulting company

Can control the staffing and budget decisions behind a neglect case.

03

Managing employees

The people who run the facility, named in the statute itself.

04

Direct caregivers

Those who gave the care directly, whether employees or contractors.

A passive investor who merely holds a financial interest and does not run the facility is not liable under the statute. The nursing home is generally not liable for a treating physician’s medical negligence, though it can be held accountable for its medical director’s failures in the administrative duties the statute requires.

The Florida law behind a nursing home case

Florida does not leave nursing home standards to guesswork. These rules set what the facility owed your loved one, who can be held responsible, how long you have and what must happen before a lawsuit, and each one shapes the evidence we go after first.

Rule What it means in your case

Residents’ Bill of Rights

Fla. Stat. § 400.022

Every licensed Florida nursing home must guarantee these rights in writing and honor them, including adequate and appropriate health care and freedom from abuse, neglect, exploitation and improper restraint. A violation of these rights that causes injury to the resident is the foundation of a nursing home claim.

Civil enforcement

Fla. Stat. § 400.023

The statute gives the resident, or the personal representative after a death, a claim against the licensee, its management or consulting company, its managing employees and its direct caregivers. Florida law states that this is not a medical malpractice claim and that Chapter 766 does not apply to it.

Presuit notice

Fla. Stat. § 400.0233

Before suit, each prospective defendant gets a certified-mail notice of the rights violated, the negligence and the injuries, with the attorney’s certificate that a reasonable investigation supports a good-faith belief that grounds exist. No lawsuit can be filed for 75 days after the notice is mailed, during which the deadline is paused; silence at the end counts as a rejection.

Deadline to file

Fla. Stat. § 400.0236

Generally two years from the incident, or from when it was discovered or should have been discovered, and in no event more than four years from the incident. Fraudulent concealment or intentional misrepresentation extends the deadline to two years from discovery, never more than six years from the incident.

Punitive damages

Fla. Stat. § 400.0237

A punitive damages claim cannot proceed until a court finds a reasonable evidentiary basis for it. At trial, the claimant must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant actively and knowingly participated in intentional misconduct or engaged in gross negligence, meaning conduct so reckless that it showed a conscious disregard for the resident’s safety or rights.

Assisted living facilities

Fla. Stat. §§ 429.28, 429.29

Assisted living facilities are licensed differently and governed by Chapter 429, not Chapter 400. That chapter has its own residents’ bill of rights and its own civil action for violations, including the right to recover actual and punitive damages.

Nursing home and assisted living cases we handle

These are the claims we handle most, and each one is built from the facility’s own records.

Bedsores and pressure ulcers

A pressure ulcer that develops and worsens when staff were supposed to turn and reposition a bedbound resident.

Falls and fractures

Falls where the facility ignored a documented fall risk or did not provide the supervision the care plan required.

Weight loss and dehydration

Sudden weight loss or dehydration when the care plan called for feeding assistance the resident did not get.

Sexual abuse

The Residents’ Bill of Rights names freedom from sexual abuse among the rights every facility must honor.

See nursing home sexual assault claims

Medication errors

Errors in giving medication, traced through the facility’s medication administration records and compared with what the care plan required.

Financial exploitation

Missing money or belongings and unexplained withdrawals; a facility that holds a resident’s funds must account for them.

Improper restraint

Physical or chemical restraints used for staff convenience, rather than those a physician authorizes in writing for a limited time or an emergency requires.

Assisted living facilities

Facilities licensed under Chapter 429 rather than Chapter 400, with their own residents’ rights and their own civil action.

Frequently asked questions

Not automatically. A fall supports a case when the facility failed a duty it owed, such as ignoring a documented fall risk or not providing the supervision the care plan required, and that failure caused an injury that should have been prevented. The way to know is to compare the facility’s own fall-risk assessment and care plan against what the records show the staff documented.

Generally two years from the incident, or from when it was discovered or should have been discovered, and in no event more than four years from the incident, under Fla. Stat. § 400.0236. If the facility fraudulently concealed or intentionally misrepresented what happened, you may have up to two years from discovering it, never more than six years from the incident. Because the rules pull in different directions, you should assume the clock is running and speak with a lawyer promptly.

No. Reporting to the Florida Abuse Hotline or the Agency for Health Care Administration is separate from a lawsuit and is not a prerequisite to one. A nursing home lawsuit does require its own statutory step first: a presuit notice under Fla. Stat. § 400.0233, which pauses the deadline for 75 days while the facility evaluates the claim.

No. Florida law states that the medical malpractice statute, Chapter 766, does not apply to a nursing home claim brought under Chapter 400. A claim for the facility’s failure to provide adequate care follows the nursing home process. If the harm came from a physician’s own negligent medical treatment, that is a separate medical malpractice claim against the physician under Chapter 766, not part of the Chapter 400 case against the facility.

No. In everyday terms, abuse usually involves intentional harm and neglect is the failure to provide the care and supervision a resident needs, but both violate the resident’s statutory rights. A nursing home that fails to deliver adequate care has violated those rights, and that violation, when it causes injury, supports a claim. The case still has to connect the violation to the injury.

It changes how the case is proven, not whether it can be. Because a resident with dementia may not be able to report what happened, these cases rely even more heavily on the facility’s own records, the physical evidence, staffing data, and expert review of whether the care met the required standard.

Florida law lets the claim be brought by the resident, by the resident’s guardian, or by a person acting on the resident’s behalf with the consent of the resident or their guardian, and after a death by the estate’s personal representative. Whether a particular power of attorney or guardianship gives a family member that authority depends on the document, so it is worth having a lawyer review it and sort out which path applies.

A claim survives the resident’s death and is brought by the personal representative of the resident’s estate. Later in the case, after the verdict and before judgment, Florida law requires an election between survival damages, which compensate for what the resident endured before death, and wrongful death damages, which compensate the family members the law recognizes as survivors. It is a consequential choice that should be made with a lawyer’s guidance.

Florida law protects against it. The Residents’ Bill of Rights gives residents the right to raise grievances free from reprisal, and a facility can transfer or discharge a resident only for the limited reasons the statute allows, with advance notice in most cases. Retaliation or an improper discharge is itself a violation of the resident’s rights. If you are worried about your loved one’s safety while a case is pending, that is one of the first things we help address.

My office handles nursing home abuse and neglect cases on a contingency fee: you pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for your family, and the initial consultation is free. If there is no recovery you owe no fee and no costs; when we recover, case costs are paid from the recovery.

Answers written and reviewed by Prosper Shaked, Florida personal injury attorney.

Call a Miami nursing home abuse lawyer

If you believe a nursing home or assisted living facility has harmed someone you love, the sooner the records are preserved, the better protected the evidence is. Call and you will reach an attorney, not an intake screener, on that call or later the same day.

Call (305) 694-2676 Free case review




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