What You Need to Know: Justice for Nursing Home Victims Act

Nursing Home Victims Act

As of October 2021, over 15,000 residents of Nursing Homes died of Covid-19. At the same time, immunity laws were passed, and since repealed, which attempted to bar families grieving the loss of loved ones from filing wrongful death cases against these same nursing homes.

Now, a proposed new law may allow these families of Covid-19 victims who resided in nursing homes to seek compensation for the lost of their loved ones.

Early during the Covid-19 pandemic, a law supported by hospital and nursing home lobbying groups was snuck through that attempted to provide immunity to nursing homes for negligence related to Covid-19 deaths. This law was later repealed in April 2021.

New York lawmakers, led by Assembly Member Ron Kim, have proposed the “Justice for Nursing Home Victims Act”, which would allow families to seek a remedy for the loss of their family member to Covid-19 in a nursing home.

The proposed act, among other things, would allow families to receive up to $250,000 for every loved one lost to Covid-19, and potentially $100,000 for each distributee.

The proposed fund would be established through $4 billion from the State of New York and would be modeled closely to the September 11 Victim’s Compensation Fund.

“The Justice for Nursing Home Victims Act will make it very expensive for our state and the nursing home industry to commit eldercide.

At the peak of the pandemic, it is abundantly clear that our state government’s only motivating factor was protecting industry profits over people’s lives,” said Kim. (https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/nursing-home-compensation-193.jpg?quality=90&strip=all)

The current proposed bill would also extend the statute of limitations for families to file claims against nursing homes and prevent future immunity laws.

The thousands of families who lost loved ones who passed from Covid-19 while residing a nursing home deserve a remedy to achieve compensation for their loss.

Nursing homes across the State of New York failed to protect its residents from this virus.

Many of these same nursing homes have a long history of putting profits over the welfare of its residents and were ill equipped to respond to the virus.

This proposed fund will allow these families to receive their deserved compensation in a way much simpler than forcing them to seek litigation against these nursing homes.

These families have been through enough and should not be forced to endure the time and expense of years of litigation.


Learn more about the proposed bill or the legal options available to family members who lost a loved one to Covid-19 in a nursing home.