The short answer is, yes, you can still pursue a claim for damages suffered by your parent due to nursing home abuse and neglect even if they died due to unrelated reasons before their case was resolved or even before a lawsuit was ever filed.
The law looks at the right to file a lawsuit as being an asset. If someone suffers an injury due to nursing home abuse and neglect, that is considered an asset which they still own at the time of their passing. It does not matter that the cause of death is due to a cause unrelated to the injury they suffered at the nursing home.
You also should not necessarily be so certain that the cause of death is unrelated to the accident which caused the injury to begin with. We often find that clients who suffer hip fractures due to a fall at the nursing home often survive the fall itself and the surgery but experience complications which result in their death.
Cases where the cause of death is “unrelated” should be looked at closely indeed by experienced nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers.