Nursing homes: Health & Safety Code § 1430, subdivision (b)

An overlooked statute that can drive your case, and it comes with attorney’s fees

2025 October

California’s nursing homes are failing the people who need them most. Every day, elderly and dependent adult residents are being neglected in facilities across the state. Understaffing, inadequate training, and profit-driven approaches to care create ripe conditions for neglect. And if you think these problems are going away anytime soon, you’re kidding yourself. Between 2023 and 2050, California’s population aged 65 and older is expected to grow from 16.2% to about 24.9% of the total population. (Public Policy Institute of California, California’s Population (2023) https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/). That’s a 53.7% increase, and it means a growing number of people will be relying on these facilities to care for every aspect of their daily life. More nursing home residents means more facilities, and more chances for companies to profit off vulnerable people in a growing market.

As the prevalence of neglect grows, so will the demand for accountability. More lawyers will find themselves fielding urgent calls from potential clients – often the surviving family members of someone who died after being neglected in a facility – and throwing their hat into the ring to take on nursing homes. But navigating these cases isn’t simple. California law applies different frameworks depending on the facts. MICRA governs traditional negligence claims against skilled nursing facilities, capping non-economic damages, limiting attorney’s fees, and tightening the timeline to file. The Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (Elder Abuse Act) provides another path when there’s clear and convincing evidence of reckless neglect. While both are important pathways to accountability, many lawyers overlook a third cause of action that offers both strategic advantages in litigation and built-in financial incentives – Health and Safety Code section 1430, subdivision (b).

Section 1430(b) provides a cause of action to hold skilled nursing and intermediate care facilities liable for violations of residents’ rights. Importantly, the statute isn’t limited to a specific list of residents’ rights – it applies broadly to any right granted under state or federal law, including those found in Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations and the Code of Federal Regulations. Protected rights include the right to be treated with dignity, to be free from abuse, to receive adequate attention from staff, and to get appropriate medical care. When those rights – or any other rights protected by law – are violated, section 1430(b) can provide a more targeted, flexible, and accessible remedy than traditional negligence claims.

The law allows a current or former resident – either on their own or through you, their lawyer – to bring a cause of action directly against the facility’s licensee. Unlike traditional negligence or elder abuse claims, the facility can be held liable even when the violation is technical or administrative in nature. (Lemaire v. Covenant Care California, LLC (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 864, 865.) As long as a resident’s legal rights were violated, the statute applies. There is no need to prove traditional damages, as would be required under most other nursing-home neglect claims. (Ibid.)

The statute provides for two remedies: (1) injunctive relief and (2) monetary damages with attorney’s fees. Injunctive relief is available when the violation is ongoing, and a plaintiff can ask the court to order the facility to stop the unlawful conduct. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 526; Civ. Code, § 3422.) This remedy is especially useful in cases involving systemic issues, such as improper staffing ratios or blanket policies that violate patients’ rights. Injunctive relief can drive meaningful changes while the case is still pending and help protect other residents from experiencing similar violations. At our firm, we are generally reluctant to pursue a case on behalf of a plaintiff who is still residing in the facility they intend to sue, so we typically avoid using section 1430(b) to pursue injunctive relief.

But for most practitioners, the real draw of 1430(b) is its provision for monetary damages and attorneys’ fees. For violations occurring on or after March 1, 2021, the statute allows for up to $500 in damages per violation. This may sound modest at first glance, but it can add up quickly in practice. For example, a single resident who is denied access to personal items, improperly isolated, not given proper medication, or stripped of the right to communicate with family members might have multiple violations across several days. Each one of those incidents can be treated as a standalone violation – and each one may entitle the plaintiff to up to an additional $500. (See Health & Saf. Code, § 1430, subd. (b).) A handful of patients’ rights violations can quickly lead to $10,000 or more in penalties, on top of whatever damages are available through the negligence or elder-abuse claims.

More important than the damages is the mandatory attorney’s fee provision. That fee-shifting incentive is baked into the statute and can completely change the economics of a case. In a lot of elder neglect cases, the cost of litigation can outweigh the value of the claim, especially when MICRA limits non-economic damages and the facts don’t rise to reckless neglect under the Elder Abuse Act. Section 1430(b) gives lawyers another path that can make it worthwhile to take on a tough case because it ensures they’ll be paid for their time. A lawyer I know recently took a heavily litigated skilled-nursing case to arbitration and walked away with mid six-figures in attorney’s fees, even though the client was awarded just a low six-figure amount. In my view, the risk of a huge attorney’s fee award should be front and center in every mediation brief and settlement discussion. Defense counsel needs to appreciate the risk of having section 1430(b) on the verdict form.

More than just a value multiplier, section 1430(b) can be a strategic tool, particularly in discovery. Including a section 1430(b) claim alongside negligence or elder abuse strengthens your position to access a broader range of discovery early in the case. Documents such as internal grievance logs, policies and procedures, incident reports, staff training records, and resident communications become relevant, as they are reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence of patient rights violations. While the Elder Abuse Act may support access to some of these materials, section 1430(b) offers a more direct and focused argument. Clashes with defense counsel over documents and interrogatory responses are often easier to resolve when section 1430(b)’s broad discovery scope is emphasized in your motion-to-compel papers.

And here is something even a seasoned elder-abuse litigator may not have considered. Later in the case, section 1430(b) creates an excellent opportunity to move for summary adjudication on a clean, narrow issue. Unlike a negligence cause of action, which often involves disputed facts and expert opinions, a section 1430(b) claim can be established with documentation alone. Was the resident denied access to records within the time frame required by law? Was a call light repeatedly ignored? Did the facility fail to document or investigate a known rights violation? These are yes-or-no questions that, when supported by the record, especially with deposition testimony, can lay the groundwork for early adjudication. [Editor’s note: With limited exceptions, summary adjudication must be targeted to an entire cause of action, which includes the resolution of both liability and damages. Since the amount of damages is a factual issue, this often makes summary adjudication unavailable to the plaintiff. But it is possible that these issues could be framed as an “issue of duty” that falls within the scope of what is permissibly subject to summary adjudication].)

A motion for summary adjudication here is more than a procedural step. It can shift the momentum of the entire case. If granted, it locks in liability under a clean statute with statutory penalties and mandatory attorney’s fees. Even if denied, it sends a clear message: The plaintiff is organized, proactive, and ready to litigate hard. In my experience, with defense firms often stretched thin due to how widespread these neglect cases have become, this kind of pressure forces defense counsel to dig into the file, confront the weaknesses in their case, and start thinking seriously about meaningful settlement talks.

In short, I believe section 1430(b) can be a plaintiff’s best friend. It’s an advocate for attorneys getting paid fairly on cases that might otherwise fall through the cracks of our civil-justice system. It’s a tool that helps facilitate the exchange of critical documents and, later, meaningful settlement discussions. But more than anything, section 1430(b) is a cause of action that sends a clear message to facilities: Residents, even if they are no longer in the prime of their lives, are people with dignity whose rights matter (and in truth, matter much more) than the profits those facilities are chasing.