Highland Park Skilled Nursing Injury Lawyer

If your loved one was hurt at Highland Park Skilled Nursing and Wellness Center in Los Angeles, you are in the right place. You may be dealing with unexplained injuries, a sudden decline in health, or a facility that isn’t giving you straight answers. That is not something you should face alone — and you don’t have to.

At J&Y Law, we represent families who trusted a skilled nursing facility with the care of someone they love — and were let down. We handle these cases throughout California on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you. Call or text (877) 735-7035 for a free consultation.

Compensation Available in a Skilled Nursing Injury Case

The damages recoverable in a Highland Park skilled nursing injury case depend on the nature of the harm and the conduct of the facility. Under California law and EADACPA, compensation may include:

Medical expenses — past and future costs for treatment of the injury caused by the facility’s negligence, including hospitalization, surgery, wound care, physical therapy, and any ongoing treatment.

Costs of relocation and alternative care — if your loved one had to be moved to another facility or required additional care as a result of the injury.

Pain and suffering — compensation for the physical pain and emotional distress the resident endured.

Loss of dignity and quality of life — courts recognize that skilled nursing residents have a right to live with dignity, and the deprivation of that right is a compensable harm.

Wrongful death damages — if a loved one died as a result of negligence or abuse at the facility, surviving family members may bring a wrongful death claim for the loss of their loved one’s companionship, comfort, care, and guidance, as well as funeral and burial expenses. Under EADACPA, pain and suffering damages survive the resident’s death and may be pursued by the estate.

Punitive damages — in cases involving recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice, punitive damages are available and may be trebled under California Civil Code Section 3345 in cases involving elder victims.

Attorney’s fees — EADACPA allows for recovery of attorney’s fees in cases where the defendant is found liable for abuse or neglect involving recklessness, malice, oppression, or fraud.

About Highland Park Skilled Nursing and Wellness Center

Highland Park Skilled Nursing and Wellness Center is located at 5125 Monte Vista Street, Los Angeles, CA 90042, in the Highland Park neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles. The facility operates 59 certified beds and participates in both Medicare and Medicaid. It is licensed by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) as a Skilled Nursing Facility (HCAI ID: 206190604) and is owned by Pacific Healthcare Holdings, Inc.

CMS has assigned the facility an overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars — below the national average of 3 stars — based on health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. Independent analysis has ranked Highland Park Skilled Nursing and Wellness Center at or near the bottom third of skilled nursing facilities within a 25-mile radius of its location. Federal inspection records document citations for violations including failure to protect residents from accident hazards, failure to ensure residents maintain their ability to perform daily activities without a medical reason for decline, and failure to uphold residents’ rights to a dignified existence.

These inspection findings do not mean the facility is unsafe for every resident. But if your loved one experienced a fall, a rapid health decline, a bedsore, or an unexplained injury while living there, the facility’s compliance history is a starting point for understanding what may have gone wrong.

What Brings Families to Us After a Highland Park Skilled Nursing Injury

The families we hear from are not in a comfortable position. They placed a parent, spouse, or grandparent in a skilled nursing facility because that person needed around-the-clock care they couldn’t safely provide at home. They trusted the facility to do its job. Then something went wrong — sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly — and now they are trying to understand what happened and whether anyone is responsible.

Some of the most common situations we see:

Falls resulting in serious injury. A resident falls and suffers a hip fracture, head injury, or broken wrist. Staff may say the resident “got up on their own” — but a facility’s duty is to assess fall risk and put precautions in place, not simply respond after the fact.

Bedsores (pressure ulcers). A resident who cannot reposition themselves develops a pressure ulcer that deepens over days or weeks. Stage 3 and Stage 4 pressure ulcers — wounds that reach into muscle and bone — are almost always preventable with proper repositioning, nutrition monitoring, and wound care protocols.

Medication errors. A wrong dosage, a missed medication, or a drug administered to the wrong resident can cause strokes, falls, organ damage, or death. These errors are often buried in incident reports that families never see.

Rapid, unexplained decline. A resident who was stable upon admission becomes malnourished, dehydrated, or dangerously weak within weeks. Families are told it is “normal aging.” In many cases it is not.

Signs of physical abuse. Unexplained bruises, lacerations, or a resident’s fear of certain staff members are warning signs that must be taken seriously.

If any of these situations apply to your family, do not wait for the facility to investigate itself. That investigation will not be neutral.

California Law Protects Skilled Nursing Residents

California has some of the strongest elder protection laws in the country. Knowing what those laws require is useful whether you are deciding to pursue a claim or simply trying to understand what your loved one was entitled to.

The Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (EADACPA) is the primary law governing nursing home injury and neglect claims in California. Codified in California Welfare and Institutions Code §15600 et seq., this law defines elder abuse to include physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, isolation, and any treatment that results in physical harm, pain, or mental suffering. It applies to residents 65 and older and to dependent adults between ages 18 and 64 who have physical or mental limitations that restrict their ability to protect themselves.

What makes EADACPA particularly powerful is what it allows a court to award. In cases where a facility acted with recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice, a victim can recover enhanced remedies beyond standard injury damages — including attorney’s fees and punitive damages. Under California Civil Code Section 3345, punitive damages may be trebled in cases involving abuse of elders. Pain and suffering damages also survive the victim’s death, meaning the estate of a deceased resident can still pursue compensation for what the person endured before they died.

California Penal Code Section 368 makes elder abuse a criminal offense — a felony or misdemeanor depending on the severity — for individuals who willfully cause or permit a person 65 or older to suffer unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering. Criminal charges and a civil claim under EADACPA can proceed at the same time.

Minimum staffing requirements under California law require skilled nursing facilities to provide a minimum of 3.5 hours of direct care per resident per day, with at least 2.4 of those hours provided by certified nursing assistants (CNAs). This is set by California Health and Safety Code Section 1276.65 and codified at 22 CCR Section 72329.2. Facilities with fewer than 60 licensed beds — like Highland Park Skilled Nursing, which has 59 certified beds — must have at least one registered nurse or licensed vocational nurse awake and on duty at all times, day and night. Falling below these minimums is both a regulatory violation and evidence of the conditions that can lead to preventable harm.

The statute of limitations sets the deadline for filing a claim. Under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 335.1, you have two years from the date of injury for physical abuse and neglect claims. Financial elder abuse claims carry a four-year window. The clock generally starts running when the abuse occurred or when it reasonably should have been discovered. Missing this deadline ends your legal options, which is why contacting an attorney as soon as you suspect something went wrong is important.

What a Skilled Nursing Injury Lawyer Does That Families Cannot Do Alone

When a family confronts a skilled nursing facility about an injury, the facility’s first move is almost always self-protection. Staff are coached. Incident reports are minimized. Medical records are pulled together in ways that frame events as accidents or expected outcomes of a resident’s underlying condition.

An attorney who handles these cases regularly knows where to look and how to read what the records actually say — and what they don’t say.

Here is what a skilled nursing injury lawyer does from the moment you make contact:

Secures evidence before it disappears. Medical records, staffing logs, incident reports, and care plans are all discoverable in litigation, as are internal communications and state inspection histories. Facilities are legally required to preserve them once they know a claim is pending. Your attorney will put them on notice and issue preservation demands quickly.

Reads the medical records for what they reveal about staffing and care. A gap in charting — hours where nurses documented nothing about a resident — often signals understaffing or indifference. A wound staging change that wasn’t reported to a physician on time tells a different story than the one the facility will offer. So does a fall incident logged without a root-cause assessment, or a medication administration record with unexplained gaps. A trained attorney working with a medical expert can reconstruct what actually happened.

Works with medical experts to connect the care failure to the injury. Proving that a bedsore resulted from inadequate repositioning — rather than an unavoidable outcome of the resident’s health — requires expert testimony. The same is true for falls, infections, and medication injuries. J&Y Law works with independent medical professionals who can review the facility’s records and provide analysis that holds up in court.

Handles all communications with the facility, its insurer, and its legal team. Once you retain an attorney, you do not have to take calls from the facility’s insurance representatives or risk saying something that could be used against your claim. The case belongs to your attorney at that point.

Pursues every avenue of liability. In California, liability for skilled nursing injuries can extend beyond the direct caregivers to supervisors, staffing agencies, the corporate operator of the facility, and the management company. The corporate structure of a nursing home chain is often designed to limit liability by separating the operating entity from the assets. An attorney experienced in these cases knows how to reach through that structure.

How Negligence Is Proven in a Skilled Nursing Injury Case

To hold Highland Park Skilled Nursing or any skilled nursing facility accountable, a claim must establish four things:

Duty of care. A skilled nursing facility owes every resident a legally defined duty to provide services that meet professional standards of care. This duty is established by California’s licensing requirements and the federal Conditions of Participation for Medicare and Medicaid (42 CFR Part 483). It is also reflected in the facility’s own policies and the individual care plan created for each resident upon admission.

Breach of that duty. A breach occurs when the facility’s conduct falls below the applicable standard. Examples include: failing to implement a fall prevention protocol for a resident identified as high risk, failing to turn and reposition a bed-bound resident to prevent pressure injuries, administering the wrong medication or dose, or failing to call a physician when a resident’s condition changes materially.

Causation. The breach must have directly caused or substantially contributed to the injury. This is where medical expert testimony is most important — an expert must explain why the injury would not have occurred if proper care had been given.

Damages. There must be actual, quantifiable harm. In a standard injury case, that includes medical expenses, additional care costs, and pain and suffering. In a wrongful death case, the family’s loss of the person’s companionship, care, and guidance is also compensable.

Under EADACPA, if the claim involves recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice — which courts have found in cases of chronic understaffing and systematic neglect — the damages available go beyond what standard negligence law allows.

What to Do If Your Loved One Was Injured at Highland Park Skilled Nursing

Act quickly. Evidence is most accessible and most intact in the hours and days immediately after an incident. Here is what to do:

Get medical attention first. If the injury is serious, call 911 or take your loved one to an emergency room. Make sure the treating physicians know you believe the injury occurred due to inadequate care at the facility, and ask for the medical findings to be documented.

Request the complete medical records. Under California Health and Safety Code Section 123111, a patient or their authorized representative has the right to inspect and receive copies of all medical records. Request them in writing, and request the full chart — not a summary. Do this as soon as possible.

Photograph the injuries. Pressure ulcers, bruises, lacerations, and other visible injuries should be photographed with a date and time stamp before they heal. Take photos of the resident’s room and any conditions that contributed to the injury.

Write down what you observed and when. Memory fades. A written account of what you noticed — including dates, times, names of staff members, and specific things that were said — is evidence.

Report the injury to the appropriate authorities. For complaints about a skilled nursing facility in Los Angeles, contact the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) at (800) 228-1019 or the Los Angeles CDPH North District office at (818) 901-4375. The California Long-Term Care Ombudsman handles complaints involving rights violations at nursing homes and can be reached at (800) 231-4024. If you believe a crime was committed, contact local law enforcement.

Do not sign anything from the facility. If a facility representative asks you to sign documents — including any kind of release or settlement offer — do not do so before speaking with an attorney.

Call J&Y Law for a free consultation. We will review the facts of your case, explain your options, and tell you honestly whether we believe you have a claim worth pursuing. There is no cost for the consultation and no fee unless we win.

Why Families Choose J&Y Law for Skilled Nursing Injury Cases

J&Y Law is a personal injury firm based in Los Angeles that represents clients throughout California. Our attorneys are fluent in the regulatory framework governing skilled nursing facilities — the state licensing requirements, the federal Conditions of Participation, and the EADACPA remedies that set California apart from most other states.

We have recovered tens of millions of dollars for our clients in personal injury and elder abuse cases. We handle nursing home and skilled nursing facility cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay no attorney’s fees unless we recover compensation for you.

Every case we take is assigned a dedicated attorney — not a paralegal. We investigate the facility’s compliance history, obtain and analyze the complete medical record, work with independent medical experts, and pursue every liable party. If the facility offers a lowball settlement early in the process, we are prepared to take the case to trial.

We also speak with families who are not sure whether they have a viable case. If your loved one suffered an injury at Highland Park Skilled Nursing and you are trying to understand what happened, call us. We will give you an honest assessment.