A Jury Awarded $350,000 After a Nursing Home Ignored a Diabetic Hospice Patient’s Insulin
Attorney Jim Higgins discusses the jury trial verdict and what it means for families of nursing home residents.
The nursing home’s defense in this case rested on a single argument: she was on hospice anyway.
A jury disagreed. They awarded $350,000 — more than the $220,000 the facility had offered to settle — specifically to account for the weeks this woman lost with her family because of a medication error that should never have happened.
I want to tell you about this case because it illustrates something families need to understand: every life has value, regardless of prognosis. A jury understood that. The nursing home did not.
What Happened
This family knew their mother was nearing the end of her life. She was on hospice care, and they were preparing to bring her home for Thanksgiving — to have her there, with the people who loved her, for whatever time remained.
Before they could do that, she needed a short-term respite stay at a nursing home neglect facility. A brief placement so the family could make the arrangements to care for her at home. When they brought her in, they were clear about one thing: their mother was diabetic and needed her insulin.
The facility took the medication. And then did not give it to her.
Her blood sugar spiked. She was hospitalized. The window the family had been preparing for — the holidays at home, the final weeks together — was gone. She spent what should have been that time recovering from a preventable medical crisis caused by a facility that simply did not do what it was told.
How the Facility Responded
When we attempted to resolve this case, the nursing home’s position was essentially this: she was on hospice, her prognosis was limited, and the harm was therefore limited.
That argument reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what matters in these cases — and of what the law recognizes as compensable loss.
The question is not how much time a person had left. The question is what was taken from them by someone else’s negligence. Two or three weeks with your family, at the end of your life, when you have made arrangements specifically to spend that time together — that is not a small thing. That is everything.
We took the case to trial.
What the Jury Decided
The jury awarded $350,000.
That verdict exceeded the facility’s settlement offer by $130,000. It was a deliberate decision by a group of ordinary people who heard the facts and concluded that this family’s loss deserved to be taken seriously — that a nursing home cannot minimize the value of a life simply because that life was nearing its end.
The jury’s message, in Jim’s words: you have to take care of everybody — old, young, all of them.
What This Case Means for Families
Medication errors in nursing homes are serious legal matters. When a family explicitly informs a facility that a resident requires a specific medication and that medication is not administered, the facility is accountable for the consequences. This is not a gray area.
Hospice status does not reduce a nursing home’s duty of care. A resident on hospice is still a resident. The facility still owes that person proper care, proper medication management, and proper attention to their medical needs. A prognosis does not suspend a facility’s legal obligations.
Juries understand the value of time. In cases where facilities argue that harm was minimal because a patient’s life expectancy was limited, juries often see it differently. The time a person loses — time with family, time at home, quality time in whatever form it takes — is real and compensable loss.
What Families Should Do If Something Goes Wrong
Talk to the administrator first. Talk to the staff. Talk to other families with loved ones in the facility. Document what you observe.
And if something still does not feel right — if your loved one was harmed, if a medication was missed, if an injury occurred that should not have — contact us.
We handle nothing but nursing home neglect cases. We have a full team dedicated to this work. We will tell you honestly whether what happened constitutes neglect and whether you have a case. If we take it, there is no fee unless we win.
And as I always say: the sooner you call, the more we can do. We would always rather help a family solve a problem before it becomes a larger one. But when it has already become a larger one, we are ready for that too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Administering medications correctly — including medications that families have explicitly identified as necessary — is a basic duty of care. When a facility fails to administer a required medication and a resident is harmed as a result, that failure can form the basis of a negligence claim.
No. A resident on hospice retains the full protections of nursing home law. The facility’s duty of care does not diminish based on a resident’s prognosis. Juries have consistently recognized that the time remaining to a person — and the quality of that time — has real value regardless of how much of it there is.
It means the jury believed the harm was more serious than the facility was willing to acknowledge. In this case, the facility offered $220,000. The jury awarded $350,000 — a signal that the facility’s attempt to minimize the loss was not persuasive.
Document everything you know: what medication was prescribed, what you communicated to the facility, and when the problem was discovered. Request the complete medication administration records. Then contact us. Medication errors are often documented in the records if you know what to look for.
You do not need to know before you call. That is what we determine. The initial review costs nothing, and we will give you an honest answer either way.
Every life has value. A jury recognized that in this case when a nursing home did not.
If your loved one was harmed in a nursing home — whether from a medication error, a bedsore, a fall, malnutrition, or any other form of neglect — contact us. We handle these cases in Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, and Georgia. There is no fee unless we recover for you.
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Last Updated: May 2026
Author Bio
Jim Higgins, founder of the Higgins Firm, is a seasoned personal injury attorney with deep roots in Nashville, Tennessee. A 4th generation Nashvillian, Jim carries on the legal legacy of his father, a judge for over 30 years. After graduating from the University of Memphis School of Law, Jim’s career began on the other side of the courtroom, defending insurance companies and learning their tactics for minimizing settlements. However, he soon realized his true calling was fighting for the rights of the injured, and for the past several years, he has exclusively represented plaintiffs in personal injury cases.
Since then, his dedication and skill have earned him membership in the prestigious Million Dollar Advocates Forum, an organization limited to attorneys who have secured million and multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements for their clients. Licensed to practice in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia, Jim focuses on personal injury, product liability, medical malpractice, and workers’ compensation cases. His exceptional work has been recognized by his peers, earning him a spot on the Super Lawyers list every year since 2021, a distinction awarded to only the top 5% of attorneys in each state.
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