California Elder Abuse Act Remedies Under Welfare and Institutions Code § 15657

What the Elder Abuse Act Adds to a California Neglect Claim

California's Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act gives families stronger remedies when an elder or dependent adult was abused, neglected, or abandoned by someone responsible for their care.

Under Welfare and Institutions Code § 15657, proof of recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice brings a mandatory award of attorney's fees and costs.

It also allows recovery for the pain and suffering the person endured before death, which ordinary survival law does not allow in most cases filed after 2025.

The standard is clear and convincing evidence, though a 2026 law lets a court lower it when a facility destroyed or hid evidence.

The Act applies to people 65 and older, and to younger adults whose limitations make them dependent on others.

If someone you love was neglected in a nursing home, an assisted living facility, or another person's care, call (888) 713-6653 with your questions.

Who Counts as an Elder or Dependent Adult Under W&I § 15610.27

Under Welfare and Institutions Code § 15610.27, "'Elder' means any person residing in this state, 65 years of age or older." No proof of frailty or dependence is needed once someone is 65.

Section 15610.23 extends the same protection to dependent adults, meaning California residents between 18 and 64 whose physical or mental limitations restrict their ability to carry out normal activities or protect their own rights. It also includes "any person between the ages of 18 and 64 years who is admitted as an inpatient to a 24-hour health facility."^[1]

• A 58-year-old recovering from a stroke in a skilled nursing facility is a dependent adult
• A 30-year-old with a developmental disability living in a group home can be one
• An 80-year-old living at home with a paid caregiver is an elder, whatever their health

Every adult resident of a skilled nursing facility falls within the Act by age or by admission, so the question in a facility case is rarely coverage and almost always what happened.

What Counts as Abuse or Neglect Under California's Elder Abuse Act

Section 15610.07 defines abuse broadly, including physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, isolation, abduction, and "the deprivation by a care custodian of goods or services that are necessary to avoid physical harm or mental suffering." Most facility cases are neglect cases.

Neglect

Section 15610.57 defines neglect as "the negligent failure of any person having the care or custody of an elder or a dependent adult to exercise that degree of care that a reasonable person in a like position would exercise." The statute lists examples: failing to help with personal hygiene, failing to provide food, clothing, or shelter, failing to provide medical care, failing to protect from health and safety hazards, and failing to prevent malnutrition or dehydration. Stage 3 and 4 pressure injuries, repeated falls, and dramatic weight loss are where these failures usually show.

Physical abuse

Assault, battery, unreasonable physical restraint, prolonged deprivation of food or water, and the use of medication as a chemical restraint without a medical purpose all qualify. Sexual abuse is included.

Abandonment and isolation

Abandonment is the desertion of an elder by someone with care or custody when a reasonable person would continue to provide care. Isolation includes keeping a resident from receiving mail, calls, or visitors against their wishes.

Financial abuse

Taking or keeping an elder's property for a wrongful use, with intent to defraud, or by undue influence is financial abuse under § 15610.30. It has its own remedy in § 15657.5, with mandatory attorney's fees on proof by a preponderance of the evidence, and a four-year deadline from discovery.

Our national page on the difference between nursing home abuse and neglect covers how families often first notice each one.

What a Family Must Prove to Reach the Elder Abuse Act's Added Remedies

The Act's enhanced remedies require more than neglect. Under § 15657, the family must prove physical abuse, neglect, or abandonment by clear and convincing evidence, and also that the defendant "has been guilty of recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice in the commission of this abuse."^[2]

Recklessness in a care setting

Recklessness means knowing about a serious risk and choosing to disregard it. A facility whose own charts show a resident going days without being turned, a care plan calling for two-person transfers that staff ignored, or repeated warnings about weight loss that nobody acted on, is the kind of record that supports it.

Neglect compared with professional negligence

Courts separate a failure to provide care from care that was provided badly. In Carter v. Prime Healthcare Paradise Valley (2011), a hospital's failure to give antibiotics and to place a breathing tube correctly "might constitute professional negligence," but without facts showing recklessness it was not neglect under the Act. The statute speaks "not of the undertaking of medical services, but of the failure to provide medical care."

Clear and convincing evidence

This standard asks for proof that leaves the jury with a high degree of confidence, above the more-likely-than-not standard used for an ordinary negligence claim. A family can bring the negligence claim and the Elder Abuse Act claim together, and if the higher standard is not met, the negligence claim remains.

Facility records, staffing schedules, and state inspection findings usually decide whether the evidence reaches recklessness, which is why they are gathered before anyone settles on the theory of the case.

Why Neglect Requires a Caretaking Relationship After Winn v. Pioneer Medical Group

Not every provider who treats an older patient can be sued for neglect under the Act. In Winn v. Pioneer Medical Group, Inc. (2016), the California Supreme Court held that "the Act does not apply unless the defendant health care provider had a substantial caretaking or custodial relationship, involving ongoing responsibility for one or more basic needs, with the elder patient."^[3]

The patient in Winn saw outpatient physicians who repeatedly failed to refer her to a vascular specialist, and she later lost her leg. Those doctors did not have custody of her day-to-day needs, so the Act's neglect remedies did not reach them, though an ordinary malpractice claim could.

• Usually a caretaking relationship: skilled nursing facilities, assisted living and memory care facilities, board-and-care homes, and in-home caregivers
• Usually not: outpatient physicians and clinics who see the person for appointments
• Depends on the facts: hospitals, which can take on custodial responsibility for a patient's basic needs during a stay

Facility cases, where the caretaking relationship is clearest, are covered on our page about nursing home neglect claims in California.

The question to ask about each defendant is who was responsible for the person's food, water, hygiene, movement, and safety from hour to hour.

The 2026 Evidence Rule for Facilities That Destroy or Hide Records

AB 251 added Welfare and Institutions Code § 15657.02, effective January 1, 2026. When a facility has committed spoliation, "the court may determine the standard of evidence in any claim for remedies sought under Section 15657 to be a preponderance of the evidence."^[4]

The rule is narrow by design. It requires a written finding of spoliation, meaning intentional alteration, concealment, or destruction of evidence to keep it from being produced, that materially prejudiced the family, either on a discovery motion or by a judge or arbitrator at any point. It applies to skilled nursing facilities, residential care facilities for the elderly, and adult community care facilities, and not to facilities run by a hospital.

• Charting changed after a resident's death or a serious fall
• Video or staffing records deleted after a written preservation request
• Records destroyed before the facility's own retention period ended

The court decides whether to lower the standard, and the statute stops operating if Medi-Cal is required to reimburse facilities for its costs and the Legislature does not fund them.

A written preservation demand to the facility, sent early, is what turns later destruction of records into spoliation a court can act on.

Why Nursing Home Neglect Claims Can Fall Outside MICRA and Arbitration

Facilities that provide medical care often argue that neglect claims should be treated as malpractice claims, subject to MICRA's limits and to arbitration agreements signed at admission. Three decisions shape that argument.

In Delaney v. Baker (1999), the California Supreme Court held that a health care provider that recklessly neglects an elder is subject to the Act's enhanced remedies, and that the Act's carve-out for claims based on professional negligence does not cover reckless neglect.^[5] The court rejected letting the remedy turn on the custodian's licensing status.

In Holland v. Silverscreen Healthcare (2025), the court held that a resident's medical-malpractice arbitration agreement binds the family's wrongful death claim only as to genuine malpractice disputes, and not as to "a facility's neglect of a resident's basic welfare and safety needs."

Applying Holland in Aud v. RRT Enterprises (July 2026), a court of appeal held that a skilled nursing facility's failures with a resident's fall-risk care plan, movement, food, and water were custodial, so MICRA's cap did not limit the non-economic award. The decision is recent and partly published, and it could still be reviewed.

Separating the custodial failures from any medical decisions, early and in the pleadings, is what keeps a neglect case out of the malpractice rules.

How Long a Family Has to Bring an Elder Abuse Claim in California

Courts apply the two-year limit in Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 to physical abuse and neglect claims under the Act. In Benun v. Superior Court (2004), the court held that the shorter malpractice deadline in § 340.5 does not govern § 15657 claims against health care providers.

• Neglect or physical abuse: two years under § 335.1
• A death: two years from the date of death for the wrongful death claim
• Financial abuse: four years from when the abuse was discovered or should have been, under § 15657.7
• A claim framed as pure professional negligence: one year from discovery and no more than three years from the injury, under § 340.5

The deadline can be tolled while an injured person lacks the legal capacity to make decisions, but not for a claim against a public entity, such as a county-run facility, which needs a written government claim within six months.

Because the two-year clock usually starts with the injury or the death, families who are still grieving are often closer to it than they realize.