You trusted a facility to care for your mother, your father, your husband or wife — and instead you found bedsores, bruises, weight loss, or a fall nobody can explain. That is not just bad luck. In Florida, nursing home residents have rights written into the law, and when a facility breaks them, your family can hold it accountable. Robert DiStefano reviews these cases personally.
A Fort Lauderdale nursing home abuse lawyer is who you call when the place you chose for a loved one stops doing its job. Abuse is when staff causes harm — hitting, rough handling, over-medicating to keep someone quiet, or theft. Neglect is the quieter, more common harm: a resident left in soiled bedding, not turned, not fed, not given water, not watched.
The warning signs tend to repeat. Bedsores — also called pressure ulcers — form when a resident is left in one position too long, and they are almost always preventable with proper care. Unexplained falls and broken hips happen when staff fail to watch a resident known to be at risk. Dehydration and malnutrition show up as sudden weight loss, dry skin, or confusion in someone who was fine weeks ago. And wandering or elopement — when a resident with dementia walks out an unsecured door — can end in serious injury or worse.
Behind almost every one of these is the same root cause: understaffing. When a facility runs too few aides and nurses to cut costs, residents do not get turned, toileted, fed, or watched the way the law requires. The injury looks like an accident. Often it is the predictable result of a business choice. Our job is to get the records — staffing logs, charts, incident reports — and show what really happened.
If your gut tells you something is wrong, trust it. The most important thing you can do early is document: photograph the wounds and the room, write down dates and the names of staff, and ask for the care plan in writing. Evidence in these cases disappears fast. Call us, and we will tell you how to protect it.
Florida does not leave nursing home care to chance. It spells out a list of resident rights and gives families a way to enforce them in court. Here is the law that controls these cases — in plain terms.
Fla. Stat. § 400.022
Florida guarantees every nursing home resident specific rights — including the right to adequate and appropriate health care, to be free from abuse and neglect, to be treated with dignity, and to be free from needless physical or chemical restraint. When a facility violates these rights, that violation is the backbone of your case.
Fla. Stat. § 400.023
This statute lets a resident — or the family on their behalf — sue a facility for violating those rights and recover for the harm caused. It also sets out who can bring the case and what must be proven. It is the legal door that turns a list of rights into real accountability.
Fla. Stat. § 766.102
Where the harm comes from medical or nursing care, the facility and its staff are judged against the level of care a reasonably careful provider would have used in the same situation. Proving the care fell below that line — and that the failure caused the injury — is often the heart of the case.
Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(b)
Claims tied to medical or nursing care generally must be brought within 2 years of when the injury was discovered, or reasonably should have been, with an outer limit of 4 years. These deadlines are strict, and evidence fades long before they run. The sooner you call, the more we can do.
This page provides general information about Florida law and is not legal advice. Statutes and case law change; your specific case requires a consultation.
Broward County is home to one of the largest older populations in the country, and with it, a dense network of nursing homes, rehab centers, and assisted-living facilities — from the coast to the western suburbs. We know this terrain, and we know how these facilities operate and how they defend claims.
DiStefano Law is not an out-of-state intake service. We are a Fort Lauderdale firm, on Oakland Park Boulevard, that has represented injured Florida families for four decades.
When you call our office, you reach a firm where the founding attorney does the work. Robert DiStefano has practiced Florida personal injury law for more than 40 years and reviews every nursing home inquiry himself. You will not be passed down a chain of case managers or left wondering who is fighting for your loved one.
We take these cases on a contingency fee, which means no fee unless we recover for you. There is nothing to pay up front, and we advance the cost of the records and experts your case needs. For a family already carrying the weight of a parent's injury, that matters. For a sense of the outcomes Robert has obtained in serious-injury matters, See how we handle these cases →
Tell us what you are seeing in a free, confidential call. We move quickly to put the facility on notice and lock down the records before they change.
We pull the chart, the care plan, the incident reports, and the staffing logs to show whether understaffing or skipped care caused the harm.
We build the case on your loved one's rights under Florida law and push for full compensation — by settlement or, when needed, at trial.
Related help from our firm: medical malpractice claims, injuries from a defective medical implant or device, or reach us anytime through our contact page.
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“The best lawyer in South Florida. Thank you DiStefano for all the hard work that you and your team have done to get me amazing results.”
Taravia Google
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“I had a wonderful experience with Robert! He fought hard for me and kept me in the loop the whole time. The whole office is just great!”
Paulavia Google
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“Mr. DiStefano is the best! Kept me up to date with everything, and his paralegal Michelle also kept us informed. Happy with my settlement — I highly recommend him.”
Stacy Leevia Google
Evidence in these cases disappears fast, and Florida has firm deadlines. The sooner we start, the more we can do. Tell Robert what you are seeing — there is no fee unless we recover for you.
(954) 572-8000