Apology Statute
What this clause says
Any statement, gesture or conduct expressing apology, sympathy, condolence or a general sense of benevolence relating to the pain, suffering or death of a person, made to that person or to the family, is inadmissible as evidence of an admission of liability.
What this actually means
An apology statute makes expressions of sympathy after an adverse event inadmissible in a later civil action. A majority of states have one. A smaller number extend the protection to statements of fault or error, and that difference is the whole practical question.
What it means for an operator
The most common reason a family retains counsel is not the severity of the injury but the sense that nobody explained what happened. Silence after an adverse event is therefore expensive, and the apology statute is what makes the conversation safe to have. In a sympathy-only state, saying we are so sorry this happened is protected while saying we should have checked on him sooner is admissible. Brief administrators on which kind of state they are in rather than leaving it to instinct, document that the conversation happened and what was said, and remember that expressing sympathy and disclosing facts is not assuming an obligation, while offering to waive charges or fund anything is, and doing that without carrier consent can prejudice coverage.
Why the Policy Checker does not score this
This term is worth understanding and cannot be checked from a declarations page. There is no single field that would answer it, and scoring it from an assumption would produce a confident wrong finding, which is the one thing a tool like this must never do. It is defined here and left out of the check.
See this in your policy
Check this term against your own program.
Run the Policy CheckerRelated clauses
Common questions about this clause
- Should we talk to the family after a serious incident?
- Why does the plaintiff always ask for our staffing records?
- Does a single-community operator need excess liability at all?
- Are our quality assurance committee records protected from discovery?
- Is a risk retention group a safe place for a senior care liability program?