Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

Georgia medical malpractice lawsuits pursuing damages for injuries caused when foreign objects are left in a patient's body must be brought within one year from when the negligent or wrongful act or omission is discovered. I touched on this in an earlier blog. The general statute of limitations for medical malpractice cases in Georgia is two years. When a foreign object is left in a patient, the statute is one year from the discovery of the object, except when the one year period would be less than the general two year provision. In that case, the patient will not be cut off by the one year provision.

Georgia law does not include as foreign objects chemical compounds, fixation devices or prosthetic aids or devices. The Georgia statutes do not specifically define a foreign object, but examples of foreign objects found by Georgia courts are a surgical sponge, steel arterial clamp and a bulldog clamp.

A case against a doctor for leaving a foreign object in a patient does not rely on showing professional judgment or discretion. The doctor is liable because he either knew about the object or should have known since he or she put it there and failed to take it out. This does not mean these types of cases can be handled by any lawyer. Any case claiming medical malpractice should be handled by an experienced attorney who regularly handles medical malpractice cases. For instance, knowing when the one year statute of limitations begins to run in a foreign object case can be the difference between having a case and not having a case.

As an Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer practicing in North Georgia, I was amazed to read about another Georgia lawsuit claiming a doctor and hospital staff committed malpractice by leaving a towel in a patient during surgery. The towel was apparently left in the patient's abdomen during a partial colectomy on February 17, 2007.

According to the article in the DaltonNow.com, the patient continued to suffer abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and loss of appetite for a full two years. It wasn't until February 26, 2009, when the patient had exploratory surgery to try to figure out what was wrong that the towel was discovered.

Continue reading "Georgia Doctor and Hospital Sued for Medical Malpractice for Leaving Towel in Patient" »

As a medical malpractice lawyer practicing in Atlanta and north Georgia, I am regularly asked by potential clients to review the facts surrounding possible medical malpractice claims to determine whether successful claims and lawsuits can be made against medical providers. The decision to pursue a medical malpractice claim is complicated. The costs involved regularly exceed tens of thousands of dollars and the chance of success is often slim. One of the first items I look at when reviewing a possible claim is whether the claim/lawsuit can me timely made. If it can't, there is no reason to look any further as to whether a claim can be made.

The time to bring a medical malpractice claim/lawsuit is called the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations for most medical malpractice cases is two years. Specifically, the O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71(a) provides in part: "an action for medical malpractice shall be brought within two years after the date on which an injury or death arising from a negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred." This requires the injured person or the representative of someone killed to bring the claim within two years from the date the injury occurred, not two years from the date the malpractice occurred. It is important to remember and understand that the date of malpractice may be different than the date of injury.

This distinction most often becomes an issue in cases involving a misdiagnosis. Typically, the date of the injury is considered to be the date of a misdiagnosis. But in many cases the injuries sued for begin after the misdiagnosis. To allow the statute of limitations to begin before the patient could possibly be aware of the misdiagnosis would be unfair. In this situation, the statute begins to run from the date the symptoms manifest to the patient. In other words, when the injury occurs after the date of the negligent medical treatment, the statute of limitations runs from the date the injury is discovered.

There are exceptions to the general rule that medical malpractice lawsuits must be brought within the two year statute of limitations. The most notable are cases involving foreign objects and children. I will probably discuss these in a future blog. What is import to know is that medical malpractice lawsuits are the most complicated personal injury and wrongful death claims that are made in Georgia. You need to be sure to retain a lawyer that is experienced handling these types of cases. We are. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss whether you might have a valid claim for medical malpractice or to simply to discuss your situation. It would be my pleasure to speak with you.

The Georgia Supreme Court issued an opinion today having a tremendous impact on personal injury cases, especially automobile accident, trucking and other road wreck cases. Until today, with very few exceptions, negligently injured individuals and the families of loved ones wrongfully killed on the roads of Georgia had 2 years to the day of the wreck to file a lawsuit. In Beneke v. Parker, S08G2078 S08G2082 (9/28/09), the Supreme Court held that in situations where the at-fault driver receives a citation for violating the rules of the road, the two-year statute of limitations is tolled (does not begin to run), until the citation is disposed of. This is a huge.

The facts of the case are straightforward. Ms. Parker was injured in a car accident on April 27, 2005, when she was a passenger in a vehicle which was struck from the rear by Mr. Beneke. Beneke was cited for following too closely. Parker filed a lawsuit against Beneke on May 11, 2007. On motion by Beneke, the trial court first dismissed the lawsuit because it was not filed within the two-year statute of limitations. On reconsideration, however, the trial court vacated it previous order and allowed the case to move forward. The case was appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals and ultimately to the Supreme Court. Construing Georgia law, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court and found the complaint was timely filed because the statute of limitations did not begin to run until the traffic citation was disposed of on May 19, 2005.

The Court recognized that its holding would have significant impact on personal injury lawsuits arising out of vehicle accidents by tolling the statute of limitations, but the Court felt that it had no choice but to reach the result it did because of the way the relevant statute (OCGA § 9-3-99) was written. The Court noted that if the legislature did not want the statute to be construed in this way, it certainly could have written it differently. Because it did not, the court reasoned that any undesirable result was a matter properly addressed by the General Assembly rather than the courts. My guess is that when the General Assembly meets next year, it will change the language of the statute to undo the ruling in this case. Until that happens, however, the statute of limitations should be extended in most road wreck cases, giving additional time for the filing of a complaint, because the at-fault party is almost always given a citation for causing the accident by violating the rules of the road.