To support a lawsuit against a hospital because you suffered a physical injury, you have to prove that the hospital itself or someone who works at the hospital was negligent and that negligence was the cause of your injury. Then you must inform the hospital and the relevant court about your lawsuit.
If you do not want to or do not know how to perform these tasks on your own, you have the right to hire our Long Island medical malpractice lawyers to do them for you. Our law firm will provide timely guidance and honest advice about your options.
- Do You Have Grounds to Sue a Hospital?
- What Evidence Should You Use to Prove Your Case Against the Hospital?
- Do You Have to Sue a Hospital to Get Malpractice Compensation?
- When Should You File Your Medical Malpractice Suit?
- What Happens After You File a Suit Against a Hospital?
- How Does a Lawsuit Against a Hospital Work?
- How Long Do Lawsuits Against Hospitals Take to Resolve?
- What Happens After You Sue a Hospital?
- If You Are Considering Suing a Hospital, Let Our Malpractice Attorneys Know
Do You Have Grounds to Sue a Hospital?
This is the first question you must answer before moving on to the next step of figuring out how to file a lawsuit against a hospital. In order to have legal grounds for a lawsuit, you must prove that the following four statements all apply to your situation:
The Hospital Owed You a Duty of Care
Put simply, the duty of care refers to each person or entity’s responsibility to exercise sound judgment and take reasonable action to prevent harm to others. For a hospital and the people working there, the duty of care includes:
- Ordering all appropriate tests and procedures
- Taking care when reading test results to avoid misdiagnosis
- Warning patients about potential risks or side effects
- Monitoring patients as they recover from treatment
- Making sure patients are given the correct medications and other medical products (e.g., anesthetics) in the correct dosages
The Hospital Violated Their Duty of Care
If the hospital fails to abide by accepted medical practice (which includes the actions listed above), they have failed in their duty towards you as a patient. This failure is a key component of malpractice lawsuits.
It is important to note that not getting the results you wanted from a particular treatment or procedure is different from medical malpractice. To file your suit, you must prove that your bad outcome was the direct result of the hospital’s failure to provide competent care.
The Hospital’s Negligence Caused Your Injury or Illness
Even if the hospital did breach their duty of care, you only have the right to sue if that breach had noticeable consequences. For example, if a doctor misdiagnoses your condition, but the “incorrect” treatment they applied still worked, you were not injured, so you do not have grounds for a lawsuit.
On the other hand, if their misdiagnosis caused them to prescribe a treatment that caused your condition to worsen, you now have a potential malpractice case.
Your Injury or Illness Caused Significant Damages
Depending on the nature of your injuries and of the malpractice itself, the hospital’s negligence could have led to:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Emotional suffering stemming from physical injuries
- Temporary or permanent disability
- Significant scarring from botched or unnecessary treatments
- A diminished quality of life if your condition prevents you from caring for yourself or others or enjoying time with people you care about
- Additional medical expenses to treat your new or worsened condition
- A temporary or permanent inability to return to your old job and earn your normal salary
Only by proving that your malpractice injury led to significant physical injury does your claim support taking legal action.
Once you meet all four of these criteria, you could have an experienced and dedicated attorney file a medical malpractice lawsuit on your behalf for any and all losses you experienced. A hospital injury lawyer from our office can do this for you.
Additionally, as a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit for medical malpractice, a person claiming injury must file a Certificate of Merit. This involves asking a medical professional to review the circumstances of your case and confirm that there is a reasonable basis to believe that your provider caused your injuries through unreasonable or unacceptable behavior. This requirement seeks to prevent frivolous lawsuits from being filed.
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What Evidence Should You Use to Prove Your Case Against the Hospital?
Your lawsuit will only have a chance of success if you collect enough evidence to firmly establish the four points outlined above. Available evidence varies from case to case, but some of the most common forms of evidence include:
- Testimony. This might include statements from you, other doctors who will speak further about the malpractice, economists who will calculate the lifetime cost of your injuries, and people who know you well enough to describe how the malpractice has changed your life.
- Your medical records. These documents show the full history of your relationship with the hospital, what symptoms you experienced and when, and what treatments the hospital did or did not provide.
- Complaints filed against the hospital. If someone filed a complaint with an authority like New York State’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) prior to the date of your injury, we may use those complaints, to the extent privacy protections may allow, to show that the hospital has a history of negligent conduct similar to the misconduct that you were subjected to. Depending upon the unique circumstances of your case, this may show that the hospital knew or should have known of some condition or practice which ought to have been properly addressed before that condition became the cause of your injury.
Knowing when to sue for malpractice is often difficult for a layperson with no medical experience, especially if you are still struggling to cope with the illness or injury caused by the malpractice. Remember that you have the right to consult with our medical malpractice law firm at any time to learn about your case’s merits.
Do You Have to Sue a Hospital to Get Malpractice Compensation?
How you recover damages depends on your circumstances. As a medical malpractice victim, you might have more than one option for handling your case. Instead of or as a potential precursor to filing a lawsuit, you might:
- File a medical malpractice claim. In many cases, this is a malpractice victim’s first step towards compensation. Rather than filing a lawsuit, you will file a claim with the hospital’s insurer. The insurer will then decide whether or not to pay what you have asked for.
- File a claim against someone other than the hospital. If a third party—for example, a medical equipment manufacturer—contributed to your injuries, you could file a claim or lawsuit against them. You would still have to clearly establish a connection between their actions and your injuries.
There are pros and cons to every legal option. For example, claims tend to be resolved more quickly than lawsuits, so you could potentially get your compensation faster—but only if the insurance company agrees to settle. If a lawsuit proceeds all the way to a jury verdict in favor of the injured party, the defendant(s) are compelled to pay what is awarded.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for insurance companies to deny legitimate claims or drag out the negotiation process to frustrate claimants. Our malpractice attorneys sometimes end up filing a lawsuit if a claim is unsuccessful, or we might skip filing a claim altogether, depending upon the particular circumstances of a given case.
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When Should You File Your Medical Malpractice Suit?
Under New York Civil Practice Laws & Rules § 214-A, you have a limited amount of time to begin your lawsuit. This limit could change depending on certain factors specific to your case, so if you want to preserve your right to file a lawsuit against a hospital, our personal injury attorneys advise you to act quickly.
(It is also very important to note that a shorter statute of limitations may apply to your situation, depending upon the specific circumstances of your case. It is best to take advantage of a free case review with our firm so that you know exactly what deadlines you are facing and what your best options for legal action are.)
Given this time limit, and given that it is often easier to collect persuasive evidence when the malpractice is still recent, it is generally a good idea to start on your case as soon as possible. This gives our legal team more time to weigh your options and, if feasible, attempt good-faith negotiations before going to trial.
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What Happens After You File a Suit Against a Hospital?
Filing a lawsuit involves notifying both the hospital and the appropriate court about your lawsuit. Which court will hear your case, referred to as “venue”, typically depends on where the parties to the case live. There may be both or either practical or strategic reasons for choosing venue. We will share our opinion on how venue should be selected in your case when you consult with us.
Once we have put the hospital on notice of a lawsuit (i.e., by serving them with the legal documents that start the case), it is up to the hospital’s representatives—often an insurance company and/or a team of attorneys—to respond. They might decide to offer you a settlement right away to avoid the cost and inconvenience of a trial.
If the hospital does not offer you an appropriate medical malpractice settlement, you may be able to enter into arbitration with the hospital’s representatives. At arbitration, you and the hospital will try to come to an agreement with the help of a neutral arbitrator. Arbitration typically ends in one of two ways:
- You and the insurer come to a settlement agreement that you are both satisfied with, so you avoid trial.
- You and the insurer do not come to a satisfactory agreement, so you must move to trial.
How Does a Lawsuit Against a Hospital Work?
If you have hired our Long Island lawyers, you will not have to conduct any trial preparations on your own. You would be free to spend time on personal matters, including medical treatment, while we:
- Exchange evidence with the hospital in a process called “discovery”
- Schedule court conferences, hearing dates and a trial date
- Select the jury members who will consider your case
- Submit trial exhibits (evidence) to the court
Once the trial begins, we will continue to manage your case. You only need to speak on your own behalf if you and we agree that it is in your best interest to testify in person. Otherwise, our legal team would do everything possible to persuade the jury to award you damages. This includes:
- Delivering opening and closing remarks at the start and end of the trial
- Questioning our witnesses and cross-examining the other side’s witnesses
- Showing and explaining our trial exhibits to the jury
- Undermining the other side’s case and demonstrating that our case is stronger than theirs
- Abiding by all relevant courtroom regulations—and making sure the other side abides by them as well
The hospital’s insurance company could still agree to settle after the trial begins. If they do not, you will need to wait until the jury returns with a verdict to find out what (and how much) compensation you will receive.
How Long Do Lawsuits Against Hospitals Take to Resolve?
Every case is different. Your lawsuit might take longer or shorter depending on how complex your situation is and how much evidence there is for the judge and jury to consider. It is not unusual for the entire legal process—from the day you file your claim or lawsuit to the day there is an acceptable settlement or the day a jury delivers a verdict—to take months or even years.
This might sound like an overwhelming amount of time to spend on a lawsuit, but you do not have to spend this time absorbed in legal matters. Our medical malpractice law firm will take care of everything, allowing you to focus on rebuilding your life.
What Happens After You Sue a Hospital?
If your lawsuit is successful, you will receive compensation for everything you lost and/or expect to lose in the future because of the hospital’s negligence. As previously mentioned, this includes money for your medical bills, lost wages, and physical and mental pain.
Depending on the types and amounts of damages you were awarded, you might receive the money all at once in a lump sum or through periodic payments, as explained by New York Civil Practices & Rules § 5031. With this money, you could:
- Afford all of the medical care you will ever need to address the malpractice injury or illness
- Pay all household bills and support your family without worry, even if you are unable to work again
- Rest easier knowing that you have held a negligent healthcare institution to account and made your community safer in the process
If the hospital’s insurer ever fails to make a periodic payment, we can go back to the court that decided your case and, in accordance with New York Civil Practices & Rules § 5034, demand that you receive all outstanding debts immediately.
No matter how your medical malpractice lawsuit goes, we will be there to protect your rights.
If You Are Considering Suing a Hospital, Let Our Malpractice Attorneys Know
Since 1991, Friedman & Simon Injury Lawyers L.L.P. has represented the wrongfully injured throughout Long Island. We do not want a hospital or any other liable party to get away with causing unnecessary harm. We will review your case patiently and comprehensively and, if medical malpractice has caused you serious harm, we can file a claim and/or lawsuit against a hospital and fight hard for an appropriate monetary award. Call now for a free consultation.
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