Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Medical Malpractice Lawyer

If you were seriously harmed by a medical error in New York City, a NYC medical malpractice lawyer can tell you whether what happened was malpractice and what your case is worth, at no cost to you. A malpractice claim is how a patient holds a provider accountable when the care fell below the accepted standard and left them worse off than they should have been.
These cases are different from every other kind of injury case. They are proven by doctors reviewing records rather than by witnesses at a scene, they run on deadlines that are shorter than most people expect, and the defense is funded by carriers that try very few cases and settle only when the file is ready for one. Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower handles medical malpractice cases across the five boroughs. Below are straight answers to the questions patients and families ask our medical malpractice attorneys most.

Do I Have a Medical Malpractice Case?

You may have a case if a provider did something that a reasonably careful provider in the same situation would not have done, or failed to do something they should have, and that failure caused you real harm. Both halves matter. A clear error that changed nothing is not a case, and a devastating outcome from care that was handled properly is not either. The only way to know is to have the records reviewed by a qualified physician, which is how our medical malpractice lawyers evaluate every claim, at no cost to you.

Is a Bad Outcome the Same as Medical Malpractice?

No, and this is the most important distinction in this area of law. Medicine carries risk, and some complications happen even when everything was done correctly. Surgery has known complications, treatments fail, and illnesses progress. What turns a bad outcome into a case is a departure from accepted practice, such as a finding on a scan that nobody acted on, a symptom pattern that should have triggered testing, a surgical injury that should not have occurred, or a complication that was recognized far too late.
The other side of that coin matters too. A known complication that was not disclosed beforehand, or that was recognized and then not managed properly, can still be a case even though the complication itself was foreseeable.

What Has to Be Proven in a Medical Malpractice Case?

Four things, and the case turns on all of them:

• A provider-patient relationship: that this provider owed you care.
• A departure from the standard of care: what a reasonably careful provider in that specialty and setting would have done differently.
• Causation: that the departure caused the harm, rather than the underlying illness or injury doing so on its own.
• Damages: real harm, such as additional surgery, permanent injury, lost function, lost earnings, or death.

Causation is where most malpractice cases are won or lost, especially in a delayed diagnosis, because the defense argues the outcome would have been the same regardless. Answering that argument takes physicians who can explain what earlier treatment would have changed, and it is why the medical review comes before anything is filed.

What Types of Medical Malpractice Cases Do Our Lawyers Handle?

Our medical malpractice attorneys handle serious injury and death cases arising from care in hospitals, clinics, urgent care, and private offices.

Failure to Diagnose and Delayed Diagnosis

Cancer found at a later stage after a scan, a biopsy, or an abnormal result was not followed up, along with missed heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, infections, sepsis, appendicitis, and spinal cord compression. Test results that were never communicated to the patient are a recurring pattern. See our failure to diagnose page.

Surgical and Procedural Errors

Injuries to organs, nerves, bowel, and vessels during surgery, wrong site and wrong procedure cases, retained instruments and sponges, and post-operative bleeding or infection that was recognized too late. See our surgical error page.

Birth Injuries

Harm to a mother or a baby during pregnancy, labor, and delivery, including failure to monitor, failure to act on fetal distress, delayed cesarean section, shoulder dystocia injuries, and untreated maternal bleeding or infection. See our birth injury page.

Medication and Anesthesia Errors

Wrong drug, wrong dose, and wrong route errors, dangerous drug interactions, allergies documented in the chart and given anyway, pharmacy dispensing mistakes, and anesthesia errors including airway and oxygen problems. See our medication error page.

Hospital and Nursing Care Failures

Patients who deteriorate while nobody is monitoring, falls in the hospital, pressure sores that develop and worsen, infection control failures, understaffing, discharge before a patient was stable, and emergency room care that sent someone home with a condition that needed admission.

Who Can I Sue for Medical Malpractice?

It depends on who did what and who employed them. Claims run against physicians and surgeons, residents and physician assistants, nurses and nurse practitioners, anesthesiologists, radiologists who read the images, pathologists and laboratories, midwives, pharmacies, urgent care centers, private practices, and hospitals.
A hospital is responsible for its own employees and for its systems, staffing, and policies. Where a private attending physician made the decisions, the hospital's responsibility is narrower, though it can still answer for its staff and for carrying out orders that were clearly dangerous. Emergency room and on-call coverage often involves outside groups whose relationship to the hospital is not obvious from the bill, and sorting out those relationships is early work in the case.
Care at a public hospital, including the city's public hospital system, is a different track with much shorter deadlines. Those claims are handled as municipal liability matters and require a formal notice within ninety days.

What Is the Deadline to File a Medical Malpractice Claim?

Shorter than most people assume, and there are several versions of it:

• The general rule: two years and six months from the malpractice.
• Continuing treatment: that clock can run instead from the end of continuous treatment for the same condition with that provider.
• Something left inside the body: one year from the date the object was discovered or reasonably should have been.
• Cancer that was missed: under a New York law known as Lavern's Law, the clock can run from when the patient knew or should have known about the failure to diagnose, with an outside limit measured from the date of the malpractice.
• Children: the deadline is extended for a child, subject to an overall limit.
• Public hospitals: a written notice of claim is usually due within ninety days, with the lawsuit on a much shorter schedule after that.

These rules interact, and getting the date wrong ends a strong case permanently. If you think something went wrong, have the deadline confirmed rather than estimated.

What Should I Do if I Suspect Medical Malpractice?

• Get your complete records: you have the right to them, and requesting them is normal and does not signal anything.
• Keep going with your care: get a second opinion and continue treatment, because your health comes first and gaps in treatment hurt the case.
• Write down what happened while it is fresh: dates, names, what you were told, and by whom.
• Keep everything: discharge papers, prescriptions, test results, portal messages, and bills.
• Do not sign anything from the hospital or an insurer: and do not sign a broad release before a lawyer has looked at it.
• Stay off social media about it: posts get used in ways nobody anticipates.
• Call early: because the record review takes time and the deadlines are short.

How Do Our Medical Malpractice Lawyers Prove a Case?

The proof is in the chart, and getting all of it is the first job. That means the complete hospital record rather than a summary, office records from every provider involved, imaging on disc rather than reports alone, pathology slides where they matter, nursing notes and flow sheets, medication administration records, fetal monitoring strips in a birth case, and the billing record, which sometimes shows what was actually done when the notes are vague.
Electronic records also carry an audit trail showing who opened the chart, when entries were made, and when they were changed. A note written or edited after a bad outcome looks very different once that history is available.
Then physicians review it. In New York a malpractice case cannot simply be filed on suspicion. Before suit, a lawyer has to confirm with a qualified physician that there is a genuine basis for the claim, which is why our medical malpractice attorneys invest in the medical review before anyone files anything. From there the case is built through depositions of the providers, hospital policies and protocols, published standards and guidelines, and physicians who can explain to a jury what should have happened.

Why Do Medical Malpractice Cases Take Longer?

Because the records have to be gathered before anything can be evaluated, because qualified physicians have to review them, and because the defense in these cases rarely makes a serious offer until the medical proof is fully developed. Malpractice carriers also need consent from the provider to settle in many situations, which slows things further.
That is worth knowing at the start rather than discovering a year in. What it means practically is that the earlier a case begins, the better it goes, and that patience during the medical review is not the case stalling.

What Can I Recover in a Medical Malpractice Case?

No lawyer can promise a number, but a claim can pursue:

• Past and future medical expenses: including the corrective surgery, therapy, and long-term care the error made necessary.
• Lost earnings and earning capacity: the income lost and the work a permanent injury takes away.
• Pain and suffering: physical and emotional, past and future.
• Loss of enjoyment of life: the function and independence the injury takes.
• Home and attendant care: the help a catastrophic injury requires, sometimes for a lifetime.
• Loss of services: a claim belonging to a spouse.
• Wrongful death losses: when a patient dies, the losses the family carries forward.

New York does not cap damages in medical malpractice cases, so the value of a claim is decided by the proof rather than by a legislative ceiling. In a case involving a child or a catastrophic injury, that value is measured across a lifetime of care, which is why life care planning is part of the work.

What if the Patient Died?

A family can bring two related claims. One is for the losses the family carries after the death, which New York measures in financial terms rather than in grief. The other belongs to the person who died, for the pain and suffering they experienced between the malpractice and their death, and in some cases that claim is the larger of the two.
The deadlines are different from a survivor's case, generally two years from the date of death, with the ninety day notice requirement still applying to a public hospital. Someone also has to be appointed to represent the estate before a case can be brought, and starting that process early keeps the options open. A wrongful death lawyer can explain what that involves without committing you to anything.

How Much Does a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Cost?

Nothing upfront. Our medical malpractice lawyers handle these cases on a contingency fee basis, so there is no fee unless there is a recovery. In New York, attorney fees in medical malpractice cases are set by a sliding scale under state law, and the percentage decreases as the recovery grows, which is different from an ordinary personal injury case. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation.

How Can Our Medical Malpractice Lawyers Help?

Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower carries the case so you can concentrate on your health and your family. Our medical malpractice lawyers:

• Get the complete record: every provider, every facility, the imaging, the nursing notes, and the electronic audit trail.
• Have it reviewed by physicians: in the right specialties, before anything is filed.
• Protect the deadline: including the short notice period when a public hospital is involved.
• Identify every responsible party: the physicians, the groups, the hospital, and the outside services whose role is not obvious from the paperwork.
• Prove causation, not just error: which is what these cases turn on.
• Build the future care picture: so a lifetime of treatment is part of the number rather than an afterthought.
• Keep you informed in plain language: straight answers about where the case stands and what comes next.

Our medical malpractice lawyers prepare every case as if a jury will hear it, because carriers in this field pay attention to files that are ready for trial. A settlement on the right number is welcome. A settlement that shortchanges what the error cost you is not one this firm accepts just because it comes early.

Talk to Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower About Your Medical Malpractice Case

If you believe a medical error harmed you or someone in your family, the sooner the records are reviewed, the more options you have. The consultation is free, and Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower does not get paid unless you do.