This week, the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation to undermine nursing home residents’ constitutional rights and further weaken protections and safety rules that were signed into law by President Reagan in 1987. The House of Representatives is encroaching on the freedom and rights of states to determine whether there should be caps on damages issued by juries in nursing home abuse cases in Florida and other states. In other words, Congress is saying to victims and their families that they will have to settle for something less than full justice if they or their mother, father, wife or husband is raped, beaten, neglected or abused in a nursing home.
This newly proposed legislation usurps constitutional power away from the states and juries and undermines all of our constitutional rights under the 7th Amendment to the United States Constitution by denying access to courts and stripping the power of juries to decide cases in a court of law. To what effect? Nursing home corporations will become ever more emboldened to commit fraud and operate their facilities even more recklessly than many of them currently do in the absence of accountability. I urge you to contact your United States Representatives and tell them to vote “NO” on House Bill 1215 and its permutations and to leave the protections in place for our elderly citizens and victims of nursing home abuse and neglect. James Keim, Florida Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer.