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Are You a Victim of Medical Malpractice in Iowa?
In most cases, if you are injured by medical malpractice in Iowa, you have two years from the date your injury is discovered – or should have been discovered – to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit with the assistance and advice of a Mount Pleasant medical malpractice lawyer.
However, there are several exceptions to this two-year deadline. Anyone in Iowa who is a medical malpractice victim should understand these exceptions and learn how medical malpractice lawsuits work.
What Are Statutes of Limitations?
Every state establishes time limits (“statutes of limitations”) in both civil and criminal law. The states establish and enforce statutes of limitations to ensure specific legal actions are initiated before too much time has passed.
For instance, statutes of limitations prevent the state from prosecuting you for a criminal offense after a certain number of years. If you stole a car twenty years ago and abandoned it after a joyride, the state cannot disrupt your life now because of something that happened so long ago.
In civil law, a statute of limitations limits the time a victim of negligence or medical malpractice has to file a personal injury or medical malpractice claim. Usually, when the statute of limitations on a case “runs out,” the claim is no longer valid, and the victim no longer has legal recourse.
How is Medical Malpractice Defined?
A medical malpractice lawsuit is a civil lawsuit brought by a person or that person’s estate against one or more healthcare providers. The party bringing the lawsuit (“the plaintiff”) claims these healthcare providers made specific errors that caused his or her injury.
Medical malpractice is a violation of the reasonable standard of care offered by most doctors. However, unless you are a doctor, it can be challenging to determine if you are a medical malpractice victim. Each case is unique and must be scrutinized from a medical and legal perspective.
When you prevail with a medical malpractice lawsuit in Iowa with the help of a Henry County medical malpractice attorney, you may receive compensation to reimburse you for your additional medical treatment, lost wages, suffering and pain, and related damages and losses.
What Are the Exceptions to the Statute of Limitations?
In most medical malpractice cases, Iowa law requires you to file your malpractice claim within two years of your injury’s discovery. The deadline for a minor may be extended if the medical malpractice incident happened before the minor was eight years old.
The statute of limitations may also be extended for mentally or physically disabled persons and for minors under eighteen years old in particular cases. A Henry County medical malpractice attorney will explain how the statute of limitations applies to your own medical malpractice case.
However, all medical malpractice claims in Iowa must be filed within six years of the original malpractice incident, with one exception. If a foreign object was unintentionally left inside your body and injured you, even after more than six years, you have two years from the date of that object’s discovery to file your malpractice claim.
What Constitutes Medical Malpractice?
While surgical mistakes get the news headlines – when a surgeon leaves an object inside a patient’s body or amputates the wrong arm or leg, for example – surgical errors do not prompt most medical malpractice claims. The most common medical malpractice is misdiagnosis.
Every year, about twelve million adults are misdiagnosed in hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices in the U.S. Misdiagnosing someone and prescribing the wrong medicine or treatment based on that misdiagnosis can injure a patient severely and constitute medical malpractice.
If your health has declined due to an inaccurate diagnosis, you may be a medical malpractice victim. With the help of reliable medical authorities, a Mount Pleasant medical malpractice lawyer can determine if you’re the victim of a misdiagnosis that constitutes medical malpractice.
What Compensation May Iowa Medical Malpractice Victims Recover?
In Iowa, two types of damages may be awarded to injury victims who prevail with medical malpractice claims:
- Compensatory damages reimburse you for medical expenses, personal suffering and pain, lost wages, and related losses.
- Punitive damages penalize defendants for their negligent or reckless behavior.
Compensatory damages include economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages are the specific damages you can document with bills, receipts, and payroll records. Non-economic damages for your pain and suffering can’t be documented, but lawyers and judges use several widely accepted formulas to calculate non-economic damages fairly and justly.
Does Iowa Limit the Amount Medical Malpractice Victims May Recover?
Punitive damages are not compensatory. Courts award punitive damages to punish negligence and deter similar future behavior. Punitive damages are rare in Iowa medical malpractice cases because victims must prove that the medical provider acted willfully or wantonly.
Under Iowa law, there is no cap on economic damages in medical malpractice cases. However, since 2023, Iowa has capped non-economic jury awards at $2 million in cases involving hospitals and $1 million in cases involving independent medical clinics.
Even if you cannot work because of a medical malpractice injury, financial concerns do not have to prevent you from pursuing justice. An Iowa medical malpractice lawyer will handle your case on a contingent fee basis, so you’ll owe no lawyer’s fee until you recover compensation.
Let Cornell Injury Law Advise and Represent You
If you are victimized by medical malpractice in or near Henry County or anywhere in Southeast Iowa, you should be represented by Cornell Injury Law. Award-winning Iowa attorney Danny Cornell will negotiate on your behalf for an acceptable out-of-court settlement.
However, if the defendant denies liability or fails to make an acceptable settlement offer, attorney Danny Cornell will take your medical malpractice case to trial. If you are a victim of medical malpractice, put your case in our hands at Cornell Injury Law, and let us fight aggressively and effectively on your behalf.
Cornell Injury Law has recovered millions of dollars for the injured victims of negligence and medical malpractice. If you’ve been injured, learn more – or launch the legal process now – by contacting Cornell Injury Law at 319-946-4019 to schedule your free consultation.
