You placed your life, or the life of someone you love, in the hands of a medical professional. You offered the ultimate trust, expecting their training, skill, and judgment would heal you.
When a preventable error shatters that trust, the result is more than just a physical injury. It is a profound violation that leaves you with disabling health conditions, mounting medical bills, and unanswered questions that the hospital and its doctors refuse to answer.
When a medical provider's carelessness causes catastrophic harm, you need a Pittsburgh medical malpractice lawyer to demand answers and hold the responsible parties accountable.
Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Guide
- Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Guide
- Key points about pursuing a medical negligence claim
- What Constitutes Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania?
- Common Forms of Preventable Medical Errors
- The Legal Process for a Malpractice Claim in Pittsburgh
- Why Choose Pribanic & Pribanic for a Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Case?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Demanding Answers Through Legal Action
Key points about pursuing a medical negligence claim
A medical malpractice lawsuit directly challenges the conduct of a trusted professional and the powerful institutions that protect them. It is a complex, evidence-driven process that requires immense resources and an unwavering legal strategy.
- The "Standard of Care" Is the Central Issue: The entire case revolves around proving that your doctor, nurse, or hospital failed to provide the level of care that a reasonably prudent medical provider in the same specialty would have provided under similar circumstances.
- The Certificate of Merit Is a Legal Mandate: You cannot simply file a lawsuit because you believe a mistake happened. According to the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, your attorney must file a "Certificate of Merit." This is a formal declaration that a qualified medical professional reviewed your case and believes there is a reasonable probability that the care you received was negligent.
- Expect Aggressive Opposition: Hospitals and their malpractice insurance carriers have immense resources. They employ teams of lawyers who defend these claims vigorously. These lawyers scrutinize every detail of your medical history to find an alternative cause for your injury and will hire their own medical professionals to dispute your claim.
- The Statute of Limitations Is Strict: In Pennsylvania, you generally have only two years from the date the malpractice occurred to file a lawsuit. While a "discovery rule" can extend this deadline if the injury was not immediately apparent, it is a narrow exception. Acting quickly is fundamental to preserving your rights.
What Constitutes Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania?
For a medical error to be legally actionable as malpractice, your legal team must prove four specific elements to a judge or jury. The failure to prove even one of these elements will cause the case to fail.
- Duty: You must prove a doctor-patient relationship existed. This fact establishes that the healthcare provider owed you a professional duty of care. This is typically the easiest element to prove.
- Breach: This is the core of the case. We must prove that the doctor or hospital breached their duty by deviating from the accepted standard of care. We accomplish this through the testimony of other medical professionals in the same field.
- Causation: We must establish a direct link between the provider's breach of care and the injury you sustained. The defense will argue that your injury was an unavoidable complication or the result of an underlying condition, so we must prove this link with clear medical evidence.
- Damages: We must show that the injury resulted in specific harm, which can include physical pain, emotional suffering, additional medical bills, lost wages, and a diminished quality of life.
Common Forms of Preventable Medical Errors
Medical negligence can occur in any healthcare setting, from a family doctor's office to a major hospital's operating room. While the circumstances vary, these errors often fall into several recognizable categories.
- Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis: This occurs when a doctor fails to recognize the signs of a serious condition like cancer, a heart attack, a stroke, or a pulmonary embolism. The delay allows the condition to progress, leading to a worse outcome or death.
- Surgical Errors: These are often called "never events" because they should never happen. Examples include performing surgery on the wrong body part, leaving surgical instruments or sponges inside the body, or causing preventable nerve or organ damage.
- Birth Injuries: A doctor's failure to respond to signs of fetal distress, improper use of delivery tools, or a delayed C-section can cause devastating injuries to a newborn. These errors can lead to cerebral palsy, Erb's palsy, or a brain injury from oxygen deprivation.
- Medication Errors: A mistake anywhere in the medication process can cause severe harm. A doctor may prescribe the wrong drug, a nurse may administer the wrong dose, or a pharmacist may fill the wrong prescription.
- Anesthesia Errors: The anesthesiologist has a critical role in monitoring a patient's vital signs during surgery. An error in dosing, a failure to monitor oxygen levels, or a failure to recognize an allergic reaction can lead to a brain injury, coma, or death.
- Hospital-Acquired Infections: While some infections are unavoidable, many result from unsanitary conditions or the failure of hospital staff to follow basic hygiene protocols. These failures can lead to dangerous infections like sepsis or MRSA, which the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority tracks as part of its mission to improve patient safety across the state. You can find patient resources on their website here.
The Legal Process for a Malpractice Claim in Pittsburgh
Pursuing a medical malpractice case is a meticulous and lengthy process. Each step builds a powerful, evidence-based argument that can withstand the intense scrutiny of the defense.
- The initial case investigation: Our investigation begins with a comprehensive collection and review of all your medical records. This often involves hundreds or thousands of pages of doctor's notes, lab results, and hospital charts that we analyze to determine if a negative outcome was the result of a potential error.
- Retaining a medical professional for review: If our initial review suggests a breach of care, we send the complete medical file to a highly qualified, board-certified physician in the same specialty as the potential defendant. This medical professional performs an independent, unbiased review to determine if the standard of care was violated.
- Filing the Certificate of Merit: If the reviewing physician confirms that negligence likely occurred and caused harm, we can then proceed. As Pennsylvania law requires, we file the Certificate of Merit with the court. This document affirms that a qualified professional supports the legal malpractice claim. You can review the specific rule, Rule 1042.3, on the official Pennsylvania Code & Bulletin website.
- Filing the lawsuit and conducting discovery: With the certificate in hand, we file a formal complaint in court. This begins the discovery phase. We send written questions to the defendants, demand copies of hospital policies, and conduct depositions. A deposition is sworn, out-of-court testimony where our attorneys question every doctor, nurse, and hospital administrator involved in your care.
- Preparing for settlement or trial: Throughout discovery, we build a trial-ready case. While many cases settle before reaching a courtroom, they only do so because the defense recognizes the strength of the evidence we have compiled and the risk they face before a jury. We prepare every case as if a jury will decide it.
Why Choose Pribanic & Pribanic for a Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Case?
When you file a medical malpractice lawsuit, you are not just taking on a single doctor; you are taking on a hospital's corporate legal department and its powerful insurance carrier.
This requires a law firm with the resources, the background, and the resolve to match them.
- We are trial lawyers who regularly litigate complex cases against major hospital systems in Western Pennsylvania, including UPMC and Allegheny Health Network.
- Our firm retains and consults with a nationwide network of board-certified physicians, medical school professors, and other healthcare professionals to build scientifically sound cases.
- Our attorneys conduct exhaustive investigations that go beyond the medical records. We obtain hospital policies, staffing data, and internal documents to prove systemic failures that endanger patients.
- We have a long and documented history of securing substantial verdicts and settlements in some of the most challenging medical negligence cases.
- You will have direct access to the attorney handling your case, ensuring clear, consistent communication throughout this difficult process.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a medical malpractice case?
We handle all medical negligence cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you pay no upfront costs or attorney fees. We advance all the considerable costs of litigation, which can include hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical professionals.
We only receive a fee and reimbursement for our expenses if and when we recover money for you.
What if I signed a consent form before the procedure?
A consent form is not a waiver of your right to competent medical care. You consented to the known and disclosed risks of a procedure, but you did not consent to a doctor's carelessness. If the surgeon made a mistake that no reasonable surgeon would have made, the consent form does not protect them from liability.
The hospital apologized and offered to waive my medical bills. Should I accept?
You should not accept any offer or sign any documents from a hospital without legal counsel. An offer to waive your bills may be an attempt to get you to sign a release that prevents you from filing any future lawsuit.
This offer is almost always a fraction of what your case is truly worth, as it does not account for future medical care, lost wages, or your pain and suffering.
Demanding Answers Through Legal Action
The medical system is powerful and often protects its own, leaving injured patients and their families in the dark. A lawsuit may be the only way to bring the truth to light.
It is the only mechanism to discover what really happened, to hold negligent providers accountable for their actions, and to secure the financial resources you and your family will need to cope with a lifetime of challenges.
At Pribanic & Pribanic, we believe that our civil justice system is the last line of defense for patients who have been harmed. We use our decades of trial experience to give a voice to those who have been wronged by medical negligence.
If you believe you or a family member was a victim of a preventable medical error, contact our Pittsburgh office for a free, confidential case evaluation. Call Pribanic & Pribanic for a Free Consultation: (412) 281-8844