Reptile Theory
What this clause says
Would you agree that a facility must never needlessly endanger a resident? And that a facility that needlessly endangers one resident endangers every resident in this community?
What this actually means
Reptile theory is a plaintiff trial strategy that reframes a case from an individual injury into a question of community safety, inviting jurors to decide whether the defendant conduct made their own community less safe. It works through safety rules established in deposition, phrased so broadly that agreeing with them is unavoidable and disagreeing looks indefensible.
What it means for an operator
It is particularly effective against senior care defendants, because the jury pool contains people who have placed a parent in a facility or expect to. The defense is prepared long before trial, in deposition. Staff and administrators should be trained to answer the question asked rather than the absolute proposition offered, to avoid endorsing safety rules stated without qualification, and to describe what the standard of care actually requires rather than what a facility must never do. That preparation is a defense cost, which on a policy where defense erodes the limit is a reason to price defense outside the limit rather than a reason to skip the preparation.
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.
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