Can You File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against a Hospital?

Here’s what you need to know to sue a hospital for wrongful death. Learn about medical malpractice that leads to the death of a patient.

More than 250,000 people die from medical malpractice every year. This makes medical errors, often in hospitals, the third leading cause of death in the United States.¹

Healthcare providers are well aware of the most common medical errors that kill patients. It’s hard to understand how medical wrongful deaths keep happening.

If you’ve lost a loved one due to medical malpractice, you are likely entitled to compensation. The negligent doctor and hospital should be held responsible for their negligence. Your family deserves financial consideration for medical expenses, funeral costs, and much more.

Wrongful Death Lawsuits and Survivor Actions

In most states, there are two types of legal actions available to family members who allege that medical malpractice caused a patient’s death. One type of legal claim is for wrongful death, and the other is a survivor action.

Depending on the state, sometimes both types of action are included in the same lawsuit.

Wrongful Death Lawsuits

Wrongful death lawsuits are meant to compensate family members for the financial and emotional losses caused by the unexpected death of their loved one. Qualified family members are generally parents, spouses, and children of the deceased.

In a wrongful death lawsuit, the decedent’s family seeks compensation for:

  • Loss of love and affection
  • Loss of the person’s presence and companionship
  • Loss of household services
  • Loss of financial support and benefits (like healthcare coverage)
  • Grief, bereavement, pain and suffering
  • Funeral expenses

Survivor Actions

Survivor actions are meant to seek compensation for the same kinds of damages the deceased person might have recovered if they hadn’t died. Survivor actions are filed by the executor or administrator in charge of the deceased person’s estate.

In the survivors’ action, the personal representative of the decedent’s estate seeks compensation for:

  • Medical expenses before death
  • The decedent’s pain and suffering
  • Funeral expenses
  • Loss of income

In a survivor action, the administrator or executor asks the court to order the negligent medical provider to pay the decedent’s estate.

The representative of a deceased person’s estate can be an executor or administrator.

An executor or executrix (feminine) is a person who was designated in a person’s will before their death.

An administrator or administratrix is a person designated by the court to represent the estate of someone who died without leaving a will.

“Intestate” is the legal term for when a person dies without having made a will.

Watch Out For Filing Deadlines

It’s hard to imagine handling legal issues immediately after the senseless death of a family member. However, time is critical when it comes to wrongful death cases.

Each state has a strict statute of limitations period for filing a personal injury lawsuit. City, county, or state agencies may have even tighter deadlines for filing a claim against a public hospital. For government-run facilities, you may only have 30 to 60 days to file a wrongful death action.

If you fail to settle your malpractice claim or file a lawsuit before the deadline, your claim is over. Your family will lose the right to any compensation.

Talk to a personal injury attorney right away. You need an attorney to step in and protect your family’s interests.

Insurance Companies Will Fight You

To pursue a hospital wrongful death and survivor action requires the advice and counsel of a qualified personal injury attorney, preferably with extensive experience in medical malpractice cases.

The physician or hospital responsible for the death of your loved one won’t admit they committed malpractice. Admitting fault would severely damage their reputation and open them up to more lawsuits. All they have is their reputation. They won’t simply give it up without a fight.

Physicians and hospitals pay thousands of dollars each year in malpractice insurance premiums. In return, when someone files a lawsuit against them, the insurance companies swing into action. Within hours of their insured being accused of malpractice, an insurance company will retain a fleet of high-powered legal specialists.

How Can You Afford an Attorney?

Most personal injury law firms offer a free consultation to the decedent’s family members. You can meet with more than one attorney to find the best one to represent your family.

You’ll need an attorney with experience in medical malpractice death claims, who can advance the funds necessary to cover the cost of medical expert witnesses, actuarial studies, special accountants, and more.

Experts will prove how the negligence occurred and support the scope of your financial losses, including the deceased’s lost lifetime income.

You can find a reputable, experienced attorney who will take your case on a contingency fee basis. In other words, the attorney’s income is contingent on winning your wrongful death case. The attorney’s fees are not paid unless your case settles or wins a verdict in court.

Hospital Wrongful Death Payment Distribution

Wrongful death payments may be awarded by a jury after a trial, or as a compromise settlement between the parties.

Compensation for wrongful death will include economic damages, meaning measurable costs, and non-economic damages like pain and suffering or loss of consortium. Some juries award punitive damages, meant to punish the hospital and deter future negligence.

The amount of compensation paid after a wrongful death will vary, and hospitals typically fight large jury awards. Rather than continue an expensive legal battle in appellate court, parties often settle for an amount somewhat less than the jury award. The final settlement remains confidential.

Case Example: Hospital Ordered to Pay $12.5 Million for Wrongful Death

In April 2022, a Connecticut jury found that Stamford Hospital and Dr. Edward Feliciano caused the untimely death of Keith Gilmore by “deviating from acceptable standards of care.

Gilmore underwent an operation on his thigh and subsequently suffered a blood clot in his leg that traveled to his lung, resulting in his death. The malpractice lawsuit asserted that Gilmore was known to be at high risk for blood clots and should have been treated with blood thinners that would have prevented dangerous clots from forming.

The jury agreed and ordered the hospital to pay $12.5 million to the family for malpractice and the wrongful death of Mr. Gilmore. Defense counsel for the hospital immediately announced their intent to appeal the verdict.

Malpractice compensation paid to an estate will ultimately be distributed to the beneficiaries of the estate. In many cases, the beneficiaries named in a person’s will would receive the compensation.

If the decedent died without a will (“intestate”), the state’s laws come into play. Probate and wrongful death laws in each state govern who can benefit from a person’s estate.

In some cases, the court decides how to distribute funds, considering:

  • Ages: The court may appoint a “guardian ad litem,” meaning a person to look out for the best interest of a child, to oversee the funds until the child reaches the age of majority, usually 18 years old.
  • Legal capacity: A beneficiary may be over 18 and legally incompetent to manage their affairs. The court would proceed with the same protections as for a child.
  • Relationship: Usually a spouse receives a larger portion of the estate, followed by children, and so on.
  • Debts against the estate: Liens against the estate must be settled before any other distribution is made. For example, Medicare and other insurance plans may have to be reimbursed for medical bills already paid.

Hospital and Physician Liability

When a loved one dies because of medical malpractice, your attorney will work with you to identify the negligent parties. Your lawsuit will need to show that your loved one died because someone made a medical mistake or failed to do what any reasonable medical provider would do.

Medical care providers and facilities have a duty of care, meaning a legal obligation to avoid causing harm to patients in their care.

The duty of care applies to all manner of health care workers, in clinics, medical offices, nursing homes, and any other care center. Home health care providers also have a duty of care.

Negligence happens when a health care provider or facility fails in its duty of care. The hospital nurse who injects insulin into the wrong patient is negligent.

Liability means legal responsibility. The hospital is legally responsible for the wrongful death of the patient who died after being injected with insulin meant for a different patient.

The Hospital May Not Be Liable for Physician Malpractice

Some health care workers, like many physicians, may treat patients at the hospital, but they don’t technically work for the hospital. The distinction is important when it comes to liability and malpractice insurance coverage.

Hospitals are usually responsible for the negligence of employees who work directly for the hospital, like nursing personnel, and staff employed in the pharmacy and other areas of the hospital.

Hospitals are also liable for administrative failures, such as hiring unqualified workers, failing to maintain medical equipment, or failing to implement appropriate infection-control procedures.

If your loved one died due to the medical negligence of a doctor, the doctor may be an independent contractor or part of a physician’s group that has “hospital privileges,” meaning they’re allowed to see patients at the hospital, but they are not hospital employees.

The hospital’s legal defense team will certainly try to distance the hospital from the malpractice of the physician. Your wrongful death attorney may still be able to prove the hospital is liable. For example, if the hospital was negligent in extending privileges to a doctor whose license was suspended or revoked in another state.

Common Deadly Medical Errors

When a healthcare provider’s treatment of a patient deviates from the established standard of medical care, and a patient unnecessarily suffers or dies, it’s considered medical malpractice.

The “standard of medical care” is defined as:

“[T]he type and level of care that a reasonably competent healthcare professional in the same field, with similar training, would have provided in the same situation.”

The standard of medical care depends on the patient’s location, the medical provider’s training, and the availability of diagnostic and treatment tools and technology. Each wrongful death claim asserting medical malpractice must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

However, there are categories of medical mistakes common to wrongful death claims:

  • Healthcare-Associated Infections: Any patient is at risk for hospital infections, particularly patients who’ve been taking antibiotics or recently had surgery, patients with central IV lines or urinary catheters, and those on ventilator support. Hospital infections are highly contagious and easily spread without proper precautions.
  • Misdiagnosis: Diagnostic errors resulting in death can stem from mistaken or delayed diagnosis, failure to use correct tests, using outdated tests or treatments, or failing to act on test results promptly.
  • Treatment Errors: Fatal treatment errors can include surgical errors, giving the wrong treatment for the condition, medication errors like wrong timing or dose, wrong medication, or wrong patient.
  • Other Errors: Other types of fatal errors include failure to provide prophylactic (preventative) treatment, patient falls, medical equipment failures, including beds, call bells, monitoring devices, and more.

Hospital Wrongful Death Questions