A Pressure Wound That Worsened in an Ohio Nursing Facility: Your Mother's Rights and the One-Year Clock

Attorney Answer

Ohio gives a nursing home resident the right to adequate and appropriate medical and nursing care, and a claim against a home that violates it. Whether this is a case turns on whether the facility's care fell short and caused the infection, which needs a medical review of her records. Move quickly: a claim about a resident's medical care is a medical claim in Ohio, with a one-year deadline that a written notice can extend by 180 days.

Her rights, if the facility is a licensed nursing home. Ohio Rev. Code § 3721.13(A):

(A) The rights of residents of a home shall include, but are not limited to, the following:

(3) Upon admission and thereafter, the right to adequate and appropriate medical treatment and nursing care and to other ancillary services that comprise necessary and appropriate care consistent with the program for which the resident contracted.

Her claim. Ohio Rev. Code § 3721.17(G)(1):

(G)(1)(a) Any resident whose rights under sections 3721.10 to 3721.17 of the Revised Code are violated has a cause of action against any person or home committing the violation.

(b) An action under division (G)(1)(a) of this section may be commenced by the resident or by the resident's legal guardian or other legally authorized representative on behalf of the resident or the resident's estate.

The claim is hers. You can bring it for her if you are her legal guardian or other legally authorized representative, or if neither she nor a representative can and the statute's order of family members reaches you.

What a claim would need. That the facility's care of the wound fell below what it should have been, and that this caused the infection and what followed. A wound that worsens is not proof of that by itself. Her records, read by someone with medical training, are how it is answered.

The deadline. In Ohio, “medical claim” includes a claim against a nursing home arising out of a resident's medical care or plan of care, and the clock is short. Ohio Rev. Code § 2305.113:

(A) Except as otherwise provided in this section, an action upon a medical, dental, optometric, or chiropractic claim shall be commenced within one year after the cause of action accrued.

(B)(1) If prior to the expiration of the one-year period specified in division (A) of this section, a claimant who allegedly possesses a medical, dental, optometric, or chiropractic claim gives to the person who is the subject of that claim written notice that the claimant is considering bringing an action upon that claim, that action may be commenced against the person notified at any time within one hundred eighty days after the notice is so given.

The notice must go by certified mail, return receipt requested. If the facility is a rehabilitation unit of a hospital rather than a licensed nursing home, the same one-year rule applies to a claim against the hospital.

What you can do

1. Request her records from the facility and from the hospital, including the admission assessment of the wound, the wound care notes and photos.

2. Write down the dates you know: admission, when the infection was found, and the hospitalization.

3. Ask the facility for its grievance process if you want to raise the care with them; keep copies.

4. Contact a lawyer who handles nursing home claims soon, given the one-year clock.

5. Even if you are handling this yourself, you would be best served by a brief phone consultation with a local Ohio attorney before you act. Most lawyers offer a short initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts — and on how your court actually handles this — is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. One year from when the claim accrued under Ohio Rev. Code § 2305.113(A), extendable by 180 days by written notice sent before the year ends (§ 2305.113(B)(1)). When it accrued is a question a lawyer should answer from the records.