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Donald Trump, who has used the legal system 4,095 times and counting to sue individuals and companies, wants to overturn an Obama era rule that protects nursing home residents and allows them recourse to sue for mistreatment.
Consumer groups are making a last ditch effort to stop the Trump administration from stripping nursing home residents and their families of the right to take facilities to court over alleged abuse, neglect or sexual assault.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) announced plans in June to do away with an Obama-era rule that prohibited nursing homes that accept Medicare or Medicaid funds from including language in their resident contracts requiring that disputes be settled by a third party rather than a court.
Remington Gregg, counsel for civil justice and consumer rights at Public Citizen, said the rule change is not only unnecessary, but shameful.
Gregg said the provisions, known to lawyers as pre-dispute arbitration agreements, create an unequal balance of power between the nursing home and its elderly patients or the family members caring for them.
"When you are trying to get someone in a nursing home, often time it's stressful or an emotional time. Often times loved ones can't take care of themselves, so for a nursing home to say in order to get in you have to waive your right is shameful," he said.
"We're talking about everything you may have a problem with - abuse, neglect, sexual assault, a wide variety of things - they are now saying you are waiving your right to full justice."
While the Trump administration will make nursing home residents sign away their rights to full justice, Trump keeps using the legal system to sue, sue, sue.
USA Today has a interactive running total of Trump’s lawsuits.
3,500 lawsuits by June 2016. Today that number is 4,095 lawsuits for Trump.
The number of lawsuits keeps growing.
In early June, the analysis had found at least 3,500 cases — a figure that has now surpassed 4,000 — and today we're releasing a new interactive tool that lets you explore more than three decades of court actions by and against Trump and his companies.
Trump uses the lawsuits to negotiate throughout his business relationships. He turns to litigation to distance himself from failing projects that relied on the Trump brand. And he uses the legal system to haggle over his property bills and contracts with vendors.
You see how this works. Donald Trump can use the legal system “at will” to protect his interests, but if it’s older vulnerable Americans and their families who need the legal system to protect their interests, screw them all.
This is Donald Trump’s America. Older Americans, the less fortunate and the most vulnerable are not afforded the protections he and his Swamp have access to and use at will.
Shameful.