In the past three decades, state medical examiner boards across the country received more than 1.4 million medical malpractice lawsuits. Out of those millions, 12,584 medical injury claims were filed in Nevada from 1990 to 2000, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). If you or a loved one are a victim of medical malpractice in Las Vegas, you need to know your legal rights and options. Consulting a Las Vegas medical malpractice lawyer will help you file a lawsuit to recover your losses.
Understanding Nevada’s Medical Malpractice Laws
Medical malpractice is a type of negligence specific to a “provider of health care” in Nevada. Per Nevada law NRS 41A.015, professional negligence is defined as:
The failure of a provider of health care, in rendering services, to use the reasonable care, skill or knowledge ordinarily used under similar circumstances by similarly trained and experienced providers of health care.
Medical malpractice lawsuits are used to seek compensation for injuries and related damages suffered at the hands of a negligent or reckless health care provider.
In Nevada, a medical expert must first review a medical malpractice case and provide an affidavit of merit before it can proceed to court. This process has two benefits:
- Confirms that there is a reasonable basis to believe malpractice occurred.
- Helps filter out frivolous lawsuits and ensures that only valid claims move forward.
Conversely, under Nevada’s modified comparative negligence rule, results of a medical malpractice case may be affected if the patient is found to be fully or partially at-fault for their degree of injuries.
For example, a health care provider orders a patient to rest and avoid any heavy-duty activities. The patient chooses to ignore these instructions and aggravates or opens a wound. If the resulting injuries can be linked to those actions, and were also partly related to the previous level of care provided by the health care provider, both patient and health care provider could share a percentage of liability.
Statutes of Limitations for Medical Malpractice Claims in Nevada
The statute of limitations is a mandated amount of time that a person has to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. You have three years in Nevada from the date of the injury, or one year after discovering the injury, to file a claim. Missing the statute of limitations can limit your ability to recover just compensation.
Nevada has a “discovery rule” in which the statute of limitations doesn’t start running until the discovery of an injury—as opposed to when the incident happened—helping in cases where the injury was discovered after the fact.
Another factor that may impact the amount of time a person has to file a medical malpractice case is “fraudulent concealment.” If a health care provider is found to have intentionally hidden their malpractice, it could cause the time period for filing a claim to be paused or extended.
A Las Vegas personal injury lawyer will help your case progress with a fair statute of limitations, especially if you just found out about the injury.
Compensation for Medical Malpractice Claims in Nevada
If you are a victim of medical malpractice in Nevada, you may qualify for the following types of compensation:
- Economic damages are designed to reimburse financial losses, such as medical bills, costs for rehabilitation, and lost wages. Economic damages have a fixed dollar amount and help you pay expenses related to your injury.
- Non-statutory damages are damages without a dollar amount (such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life). Nevada law imposes a $350,000 on non-economic damages. There is, however, no cap on the damages for economic losses.
- Punitive damages can also be awarded in some cases. Punitive damages are not designed to compensate the injured victim but are meant to serve as a punishment for exceptionally wrongful behavior and act as a deterrent to discourage future misconduct.
Determining your true losses on your own is hard. An experienced lawyer will know how to calculate related losses and damages.
Finding a Qualified Medical Malpractice Lawyer in Las Vegas
You can find a medical malpractice attorney who has experience handling medical malpractice lawsuits at Lerner and Rowe Injury Attorneys. Our experienced Las Vegas personal injury attorneys can help you assemble your medical records, obtain expert opinions, and build a case to show how a health care provider’s negligence affected your life.
Schedule a free, no obligation consultation by calling 702-877-1500. Our phone lines are open 24/7 to take your call. You can also connect with a representative online right now by using our LiveChat service. To have your information forwarded directly to one of our offices, simply fill out this confidential form with your case details. Initial consultations are always free, and we charge you no fee until we win your case.