No parent wants to imagine that their child might get hurt or become seriously ill due to the reckless or careless actions of another adult, and certainly not due to negligence from a supposedly qualified pediatrician. Unfortunately, this exact scenario occurs all over Florida all too often. If you are not intimately familiar with the rights and recovery options the law provides you in this situation, you may have trouble protecting the best interests of your child and your family in the aftermath.
Fortunately, help is available to you from a capable and compassionate Trinity pediatric malpractice lawyer who knows how challenging cases like this can be in both legal and personal terms. With a seasoned medical malpractice attorney from Perenich Law Injury Attorneys working on your behalf, you will have far better chances of getting your family the compensation you need to minimize the damage done by a healthcare provider’s misconduct.
Common Types of Pediatric Malpractice
Unfortunately, there are some ways in which pediatricians are more likely to engage in malpractice than other types of medical professionals. Because children cannot always clearly communicate what they are feeling, pediatricians need to take extra care to monitor their patients for complications and dedicate sufficient focus and expertise to each patient.
As is the case with physicians who primarily provide care for adults, the most common way pediatricians breach the “standard of care” that they owe to their patients is by misdiagnosing a child’s condition as something else or failing to diagnose a serious health problem at all. In particular, misdiagnoses of meningitis and appendicitis both happen more often than they should and can have very serious—sometimes even life-threatening—repercussions when not properly identified and addressed.
Alternatively, pediatricians may engage in legally actionable malpractice by performing a routine medical procedure incorrectly or failing to maintain sanitary conditions in their offices or examination rooms. Along similar lines, a failure by a pediatrician to keep a close eye on each patient’s condition during regular checks, and especially after a major medical procedure, can lead to serious issues going unaddressed until it is too late to avoid severe physical harm.
Finally, although it is not quite as common as other forms of malpractice, pediatricians can sometimes prescribe the wrong type or dosage of medication to a young patient, either through simple carelessness or because they failed to account for a specific patient’s size and weight before writing the prescription. A Trinity pediatric negligence attorney could help take proactive legal action over these or any other medical errors committed by a pediatrician that directly led to a child suffering from a preventable injury or illness.
The Unique Dangers of Pediatric Malpractice
While any reckless or careless act by a doctor, nurse, or other medical professional can have a negative impact on the patient’s trust in their care, children in particular tend to suffer especially dire consequences from this type of mistreatment. Since their bodies are still developing, young children often cannot heal as easily or as quickly from major injuries compared to adults. They may be more likely to suffer lifelong physical trauma—not to mention psychological distress—as a result of a misdiagnosis, improper method of treatment, surgical error, or even a mistake made during their birth.
Along the same lines, children have more of their lives ahead of them compared to adults, which means that the costs associated with a disabling or disfiguring medical condition are exponentially greater for children injured by medical misconduct. Our skilled Trinity pediatric malpractice attorneys could provide vital help assigning fair values to:
- Lost working capacity
- Services like in-home assistance
- Expected future medical expenses
- Assistive equipment like wheelchairs
They could then demand fair financial compensation for every one of those losses.
Filing Suit Against a Pediatrician on a Child’s Behalf
Just like with personal injuries that occur outside of a healthcare setting, parents and guardians of minors injured by medical malpractice can file suit and seek civil restitution in their child’s name. However, parents and guardians undertaking this kind of litigation will still be subject to the same rules and restrictions that govern other malpractice plaintiffs, including requiring an “affidavit of merit” from a qualified medical expert affirming that they have valid grounds for a lawsuit.
There are also some unique restrictions on when parents and guardians pursuing claims against their child’s pediatrician must file suit after initially discovering their child’s injuries, as well as on how settlements for cases of this nature must be handled. Our qualified pediatric malpractice lawyers in Trinity could provide further guidance about how state law governs these claims during a private consultation.
Statute of Limitations for Florida Pediatric Malpractice Cases
Typically, an adult who wants to file suit over injuries they sustained through medical malpractice in Florida is subject to two main filing deadlines:
- Two years after they first discover their injuries, as established by the “statute of limitations”
- Four years after the act of malpractice they are suing over actually occurred, as established by the “statute of repose.”
Additionally, if the defendant medical professional(s) or organization(s) engaged in criminal fraud or misrepresentation in an attempt to hide their misconduct, the deadline set by the state of repose may be extended to seven years after the act of malpractice occurred.
Notably, the same two-year, four-year, and seven-year deadlines mentioned above also apply in situations where a child over the age of eight suffers an injury due to pediatric malpractice, even if their parent or guardian is the one filing suit on their behalf since they cannot legally represent themselves in court. If a child under eight years suffers harm through pediatric malpractice in Trinity, though, the beginning of the two-year filing period set by the statute of limitation can be “tolled”—or paused—until the child’s eighth birthday, as a qualified legal professional could explain in more detail.
Talk to a Trinity Pediatric Malpractice Attorney About Legal Options
Children deserve considerate and high-quality medical care just as much as adults do. Any pediatrician who allows a child to be harmed by failing to provide sufficient care may be held legally liable for the consequences their actions will have. As any experienced malpractice attorney could tell you, though, filing this type of claim tends to be a particularly long and arduous process, even by the usual standards of medical malpractice litigation.
In short, having help from a Trinity pediatric malpractice lawyer at Perenich Law Injury Attorneys could be essential not just to maximizing the compensation you can get on your child’s behalf, but potentially to getting paid anything at all. Call our team of dedicated legal professionals today to learn more. We are three brothers helping others.
(727) 669-2828
