Can You Sue a Drug or Alcohol Rehabilitation Center for Negligence?

Negligent alcohol and drug rehab centers can cause serious injuries. Here’s how to get the compensation you or your loved one deserve.

In the United States, more than 14,500 residential rehab care facilities provide counseling, behavioral therapy, case management, medication, and family support to persons with drug or alcohol addictions.¹

Patients entering drug rehabilitation centers are especially vulnerable. Nearly one out of four persons with substance abuse disorders also struggle with mental illness.²

Recovering addicts are fragile patients with a right to heal in a physically and emotionally safe environment. When patients are injured by rehab facility negligence or malpractice, they have a legal right to pursue compensation.

When You Can Sue a Rehabilitation Center

When rehabilitation center employees or administrators are negligent, and that negligence leads to patient injuries, the rehab center is liable. In most cases, a civil lawsuit is filed to seek financial compensation for the victim’s damages.

Damages can include the cost of medical treatment and mental health care, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages, and emotional distress.

While rehab centers may not be affiliated with a hospital, they have a similar duty of care to keep patients safe from harm. Facilities designed to help individuals recover from substance abuse disorders must remain vigilant to ensure each patient gets the right treatment, without a foreseeable risk of injury.

Treatment centers must do everything reasonably possible to make the environment safe from dangerous conditions. This doesn’t mean every dangerous condition and every harm, but foreseeable and preventable dangerous conditions.

Example: Wrongful Death in Rehab

Dawn was a nineteen-year diabetic who was admitted to a drug rehab center for treatment of her opioid addiction. During the admitting process, Dawn’s mother provided copies of her daughter’s prescription for insulin and reminded the nurse of her daughter’s Type 1 diabetes.

During her first night at the rehab center, Dawn developed an increased heart rate, nausea, and vomiting. The staff assumed her symptoms were related to narcotic withdrawal.

However, as the symptoms worsened, Dawn became unresponsive. A staff member realized she was going into a diabetic coma. Dawn’s blood sugar level had skyrocketed.

The center’s on-call doctor instructed the nurse to administer short-acting insulin. Unfortunately, the center didn’t have any insulin in stock. The admitting nurse had failed to place the appropriate drug orders.

They called 911 to take Dawn to the nearest hospital, but it was too late. Dawn died from a diabetic coma.

Dawn’s family sued the inpatient rehab center for wrongful death. The rehab center knew or should have known how to care for diabetic patients under their care. By failing to order insulin, the rehab center breached its legal duty of care. The court awarded Dawn’s family $2.8 million in damages.

Proving the Rehab Center is Responsible

In a personal injury case or wrongful death claim, the burden is on the claimant to prove the rehabilitation facility is at fault for the victim’s injuries.

To prove a drug or alcohol rehabilitation facility is negligent, you have to show:

  1. The rehab facility was obligated to care for you
  2. A dangerous condition existed at the rehab facility
  3. The facility knew or should have known the dangerous condition could cause harm to patients
  4. The rehab facility negligently failed to correct or remove the dangerous condition
  5. The facility’s negligence caused your verifiable injuries

You’ll be able to show how the facility was negligent by gathering evidence.

Photographic evidence: Rehab centers don’t usually allow patients to have cell phones or other electronic devices. Pictures of filthy bathrooms, infested food storage, or illicit drugs on the premises can be compelling evidence of negligence. If you have visiting family or clergy, they may be able to get some pictures where you can’t go.

Keep a journal: Try to write down everything you remember about the circumstances leading to your injury. Make a note of the names of staff or other patients involved. Be sure to write down the date and time of every incident.

Witnesses statements: Other patients who were aware of the dangerous condition, or saw what happened may be willing to provide a written statement supporting your claim. Ask them for their full names and home phone number.

Medical records: Your medical and mental health records before rehab will help establish the level of care you needed, and your injury treatment records will help link your new injuries or worsened condition to the rehab facility.

To collect the most compelling evidence, you’ll need an attorney.

Example: Excessive Force Injures Patient

Johnny was a thin and timid patient admitted to a rehab center for his addiction to alcohol. One morning, he refused to leave his room to attend a group therapy session. A staff member named Mitch went into Johnny’s room to explain it was important to attend the session.

Mitch had a nickname around the rehab center: everyone knew him as “the Enforcer.” The Enforcer was big, tall, and very strong.

When Mitch told Johnny to get to his therapy session, Johnny cursed him and refused to leave his room. Facility staff was trained only to use force when necessary to protect a patient from harming himself or others. However, the Enforcer grabbed Johnny to drag him from the room.

When Johnny tried to hold on to his bed frame, the Enforcer forcefully hit down hard on Johnny’s arm, breaking the bones in two places.

Johnny’s family hired a personal injury attorney to file a lawsuit against the rehab facility on Johnny’s behalf.

Through the discovery process, the attorney forced the facility to hand over critical information. They learned that Mitch had been written up twice before for using excessive force against patients, and learned that other staff called him the Enforcer because of his aggressive behavior toward patients.

At trial, Johnny’s attorney used the evidence to prove the rehab center should have known Mitch was a danger to the patients. By continuing to employ “the Enforcer” the rebab facility was negligent, and liable for Johnny’s damages.

Abuse and Injuries in Drug Rehab Centers

Just like hospital and nursing home abuse, patients in drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers can be abused, neglected, or mistreated by physicians, nurses and staff. Injured rehab patients may relapse into substance abuse or overdose while in rehab or shortly after release.

Common Causes of Injuries in Rehab Centers

Slip and falls: Patients and visitors in rehab centers can suffer broken bones, head injuries, or joint injuries after a slip, trip, and fall on uneven flooring, unmarked steps, torn carpeting, loose scatter rugs, or icy walkways around the facility.

Exacerbated withdrawal symptoms: Untreated withdrawal from drugs or alcohol can cause life-threatening delirium tremens (the DTs), nausea, vomiting, painful muscle contractions, and severe depression.

Physical abuse: Patients in crisis can be injured by cruel or angry caregivers who resort to violence when trying to subdue the agitated patient. Rehab patients may also be injured or develop bed sores caused by inappropriate sedation, straps, belts, or other physical restraints.

Mental abuse: Approved standards of care don’t include shaming, humiliation, blaming, intimidation, or ignoring a patient’s emotional and physical needs.

Sexual abuse: Patients should not be forced to undress in front of others or to hear suggestive or sexually explicit comments. Inappropriate physical touching, coerced sex, and rape by staff or other patients are inexcusable.

Patient-on-patient assaults: Some patients are combative and take their frustrations out on staff members and other patients. Staff members have an obligation to anticipate the behavior of violent patients and take necessary steps to prevent the patient from physically assaulting another resident.

Infections and disease: Because of drug-related habits, malnutrition, and generally poor health, many patients in rehab suffer from hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. When a rehab center doesn’t properly screen and treat infected patients, they can inadvertently transfer these infectious diseases to other patients.

Self-destructive behavior: More than a third of all addicts also struggle with mental illness. When rehab doctors, counselors, and staff don’t properly identify and treat these patients, they can harm themselves and even commit suicide.

Medical malpractice: Rehab patients deserve the highest standards of medical care to manage withdrawal symptoms, poor nutrition status, and to correctly identify and treat existing conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, mental illness, and more.

Why You Need an Attorney

Drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers are tightly controlled environments with a high level of information security and confidentiality. That’s good for helping patients recovering from addiction, but makes it difficult for injured patients trying to gather evidence from bad rehab facilities.

If you had relatively minor injuries from an uncontested accident, like a fall on a wet floor, you can probably deal directly with the facility’s insurance company to get your medical bills paid.

Serious injury claims arising from staff abuse, mistreatment, gross negligence, or medical malpractice must be handled by an attorney. Trying to file a high-dollar claim against the facility’s insurance company will be met with a disclaimer of responsibility and a denial of your claim.

An attorney can take legal action to get critical evidence you can’t get on your own, like business records, safety reports, and internal communications from the rehab facility.

Law firms that specialize in health care malpractice cases typically offer free consultations to potential clients. Specialized personal injury lawyers will agree to take your case on a contingency fee basis, and will advance the costs needed to litigate your case.

Armed with evidence of the facility’s negligence, your attorney will have the leverage to negotiate with the facility’s insurance company on your behalf or take your case to trial.

You must file a lawsuit within your state’s statute of limitations or you will lose your ability to obtain compensation. Don’t wait to get the legal advice you need for yourself or your injured family member. There’s no obligation to get a free case review from an experienced lawyer.