If you or someone you love has been injured by a medical professional or facility’s negligence, you can face serious consequences and immense losses. The surest path forward involves obtaining the compensation that you’re entitled to and that you need to recover. Medical malpractice claims, however, are complex, and a strict timeline applies. If you find yourself in this challenging position, you need the professional legal counsel of an experienced Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, medical malpractice attorney on your side.
Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania
Very generally, the State of Pennsylvania defines medical malpractice as negligent or unskilled treatment or care from a medical professional or facility that deviates from accepted healthcare practices and leaves the patient injured. To bring a successful medical malpractice claim, the following elements must be present:
- You were owed a professional duty of care, which is generally established by the doctor/patient relationship.
- The medical professional involved breached this duty of care, which means that the medical professional failed to uphold or follow the standard of medical care that other medical professionals turn to in similar situations. This refers to the procedures, knowledge, and skills accepted and employed in the medical community at large.
- The injuries you suffered were the direct result of the medical professional’s breached duty of care.
This is an important but challenging legal burden, and to make it more so, a strict statute of limitations – or time constraint – applies.
The Statute of Limitations
A statute of limitations refers to a legal deadline for filing a lawsuit against an at-fault party, and the statute of limitations for medical malpractice cases in Pennsylvania is a brief two years. This is two years from the date the injury-causing malpractice occurred or two years from the date that you knew or reasonably should have known that you suffered an injury due to a medical professional’s malpractice.
Additionally, Pennsylvania imposes a seven-year statute of repose for medical malpractice cases. This, in short, means that all medical malpractice lawsuits must be filed within seven years of the date the injury was incurred – regardless of when the patient discovered they suffered an injury. The only exceptions include the following:
- The case relates to a foreign object left inside the body during a surgical procedure.
- The injured party was a minor at the time that the medical malpractice occurred.
An Experienced Harrisburg Medical Malpractice Attorney Is on Your Side
If you or someone you care about was injured by the medical professional you turned to for help, you face serious challenges, and you have only a short window of time to adequately address your losses.
The trusted medical malpractice attorneys at Marzella and Associates – proudly serving Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – have a wealth of experience guiding complex cases like yours smoothly forward toward optimal outcomes that support our clients’ fullest recoveries. To learn more about what we can do to help you, please don’t hesitate to contact us online or call us at 866-488-5461 and schedule a free consultation today.