Meet Associate Attorney Elizabeth Kim

One of my favorite cases was the one I brought to trial recently. I’ll always remember afterwards speaking with the client and celebrating the verdict. It involved a resident who had fallen dozens of times and the facility didn’t do anything differently. Just allowing her to fall and be injured, and in one of her last falls, she suffered injuries that were permanent. Oftentimes, the defendants will settle, but the defendants the entire time were denying that they did anything wrong. And so to get the jury verdict back and to have them agree with the way we were looking at the case. We don’t usually sue the CNAs or any of the staff members at the facility. I think a reason for that is often the staff members are victims as well. They’re being overworked, underpaid, and having to care for dozens of residents in a small amount of time. Usually it’s with the corporations that aren’t funding the facility and making sure that there’s enough resources to provide for the residents there.

Recently, in a deposition, a former employee testified about the conditions at a skilled nursing facility. And through tears, she told us that this was the worst facility she’s ever worked at, and that she wouldn’t trust the facility to take care of her own mother. In a case where a victim isn’t able to testify because of dementia or they’ve passed away, we often rely on their family members. A lot of these family members have visited their loved one at the facility many times, and so their testimony is crucial to proving the case. Sometimes current employees will tell the truth, but not always. They are often motivated to keep their jobs. With former employees, we often get much more truthful testimony; a lot of them no longer feel like they have to support the facility’s narrative of what happened. And so they’ll give us much more truthful information about what actually occurred. In almost every case that I’ve had at Lanzone Morgan, there has been fraudulent charting in the records.

One of the ways you can tell is if the entries are late. Sometimes that is an indication that it may be fraudulent, and a lot of times you see the same entries just copy and paste it again and again. But one of the most egregious things that I’ve seen personally when working on a case was charting after the victim had already been sent to the hospital, and once after the victim had already passed away, they were still charting that they were giving the victim medication, even though she had died a couple days prior. I love working at Lanzone Morgan. I love having the opportunity to advocate for these families and for the victims of elder abuse and neglect. I feel like the work that we do here is really important and will work tirelessly to make sure that we reach a resolution for you and your family and make sure that you get the justice that you deserve.