Plaintiffs Are Now Going After Nursing Home Investors — and Juries Are Awarding Verdicts in the Hundreds of Millions

Atlanta, Georgia — A new wave of nuclear courtroom verdicts is reshaping the legal risk facing nursing home operators, and plaintiffs’ lawyers are no longer stopping at the bedside. They’re going after the investors, asset managers and private equity firms sitting behind the buildings, and juries are rewarding them with awards that are climbing into nine figures.

That’s the picture sketched by attorneys, insurers and industry analysts as the legal climate for skilled nursing grows tougher. According to industry sources, an “aberrant” or “nuclear” verdict typically refers to any jury award above $10 million that exceeds what the underlying economic loss would normally support.

The numbers tell their own story. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform tracked 1,200 such verdicts across industries between 2013 and 2022. By 2023, medical liability cases were responsible for nearly 30% of the 129 high-dollar verdicts that year, up from roughly 20% in the prior decade.

And the trend keeps accelerating. The average of the top 50 medical malpractice verdicts climbed from $32 million in 2022 to $56 million in 2024, a 75% jump in two years. By January of this year, at least two medical professional liability verdicts had crossed the $100 million line.

Three cases that rattled the sector

In Illinois last fall, a Chicago jury deliberated for just 90 minutes before awarding a family $12.2 million over a nursing home death tied to pressure wounds. The family argued understaffing and weak oversight caused the injuries.

In California, a jury hit Windsor Vallejo Care Center with a $15.8 million verdict in March in a similar case. Plaintiffs convinced jurors that the facility’s owner and management firm had “deliberately” underfunded and understaffed the building to push profits higher.

The biggest hit came in another California case, where jurors awarded $110 million to the family of an assisted living resident who died of hypothermia in 2019. That verdict targeted asset manager DigitalBridge Group and private equity firm Formation Capital, signaling a willingness by juries to reach past day-to-day operators and pin liability on the financial backers.

Why operators everywhere are paying

Even providers who never see a courtroom are feeling the squeeze. Insurance broker WTW now expects healthcare professional liability premiums in senior living and care settings to rise 5% to 20% in its spring 2026 outlook. The firm cites nuclear verdicts as a core driver of that climb.

Drew Graham, an attorney with Hall, Booth, Smith in New York, said plaintiffs’ firms are leaning hard on data-mining tools, artificial intelligence and “third-party litigation investments” to build cases. They’ve also tapped into post-COVID distrust of the sector to push juries toward bigger numbers. “Ultimately they’re pursuing generational wealth for their clients,” Graham said.

Skilled nursing has so far avoided the runaway pattern that’s hit other healthcare segments, but the door is open. Most verdicts in the sector remain fact-driven and tied to specific incidents, Graham said, “We don’t see pattern growth across the country yet.”

Operators do have one tool on their side. Georgia passed tort reform last year, backed by the Georgia Health Care Association, that blocks attorneys from naming specific dollar figures for pain and suffering during opening arguments. That kind of “anchoring” tactic, critics argue, has helped drive the recent run of outsized verdicts. With skilled nursing pulling in fresh waves of investor capital, more legal reform may be needed before the next $100 million headline lands.