There was a case that really sticks out in my memory from earlier in my career. It was a resident-on-resident assault case at an assisted living facility. The assailant had Alzheimer’s. He was a large man, 6’2″ and 200 pounds, and he wandered into my client’s room. My client was a frail 100-pound woman, and he picked her up and dashed her on the floor in the hallway of her building.
A staff member saw what happened. She was a 19-year-old young woman, probably 100 pounds soaking wet, wearing braces, and responsible for 20 memory care patients by herself.
It was such a strange case because, on its surface, it might feel like the fault lies with the assailant who threw her or the staff who were present. But it wasn’t any of their faults—they were all victims in that situation.
The root of the problem was a business decision: to have a tiny staff member alone with 20 patients known to be violent, while charging high monthly payments and using none of that money to provide adequate care.
That case was powerful for me because it shifted my perspective on these cases. It’s not about blaming the care providers; it’s about understanding what was happening at the facility and why these failures occurred.
