A nursing home may be held directly liable under a theory of corporate negligence, the state Supreme Court has ruled, providing clarity to trial courts on an issue that has been muddied since the justices first adopted the doctrine for hospitals more than two decades ago.
The unanimous six-justice court decided the matter of Scampone v. Highland Park Care Center not under the guidance of the high court’s seminal case that extended corporate negligence to hospitals, but rather under its own elucidation of a defendant’s “duty of care” to a plaintiff.
