Medical Malpractice Lawyer in NYC

Attorney Michael Gunzburg

Who Needs a Medical Malpractice Lawyer in New York City?

You need a medical malpractice lawyer if a doctor, nurse, hospital, or other healthcare provider caused you harm by failing to meet the accepted standard of care. This includes patients who received a delayed or missed diagnosis, were injured during surgery, were given the wrong medication or dosage, suffered harm from an anesthesia error, experienced birth injuries due to delivery room negligence, or were harmed by a fertility clinic's errors. It also applies to patients who discovered that their cancer progressed because a doctor ignored warning signs, and to families who lost a loved one due to a provider's negligence. If what happened to you would not have happened under the care of a competent physician in the same situation, you may have a case.

Common Medical Malpractice Cases in New York City

Failure to Diagnose Cancer

A cancer that was visible on imaging, present in lab results, or reported by the patient, but missed, dismissed, or never followed up on, is one of the most preventable and most litigated forms of malpractice in New York City. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. has secured results including a $2.3 million jury verdict for a Queens patient whose breast cancer went undiagnosed after two physicians failed to examine an obvious mass, and a $1.75 million settlement for a patient whose gynecologist treated a vulvar cancer lesion as a yeast infection for four and a half years without ever ordering a biopsy. See the full failure to diagnose cancer page for case-type details and applicable deadlines under Lavern's Law.

Birth Injuries and Cerebral Palsy

Delivery room negligence, including failure to monitor fetal heart rate, delayed C-section, improper use of forceps or vacuum, and failure to respond to oxygen deprivation, causes some of the most catastrophic injuries seen in medical malpractice law. A $20 million structured settlement on behalf of a family whose child was born with brain damage and cerebral palsy due to a physician's negligence during delivery is among the firm's landmark results. New York's infancy tolling provision generally extends a child's filing deadline to age 10 when a public hospital is not involved. Birth injury and cerebral palsy cases have their own deadline rules, contact the firm as soon as possible.

Surgical Errors

Wrong-site surgery, organ or nerve damage, retained instruments, improper suturing, and failure to monitor a patient post-operatively are all grounds for a surgical malpractice claim in New York. These cases require expert surgeons who can identify exactly where the procedure departed from accepted technique and what that departure cost the patient in additional treatment, recovery time, and permanent harm. See the surgical mistakes and delayed surgical treatment pages for scenario-specific information.

Anesthesia Errors

Anesthesia mistakes can cause permanent brain damage, cardiac arrest, anesthesia awareness, or death. The $3.3 million wrongful death settlement in the firm's history involved an anesthesiologist who failed to follow the Difficult Airway Algorithm during an elective procedure, and whose records were later found to have been altered to conceal the timeline of negligence. Anesthesia malpractice cases demand expert review by board-certified anesthesiologists and, often, forensic analysis of medical charts. Details on these cases are covered on the anesthesia error page.

Hospital Negligence

Hospitals bear independent liability for institutional failures: inadequate staffing levels, failure to credential physicians with known histories of malpractice, infection control breakdowns, and systemic gaps in patient monitoring protocols. A claim against a hospital involves different legal theories than a claim against an individual physician, and often requires separate expert witnesses on hospital administration and patient safety standards. New York City's major teaching hospitals, including NYU Langone, NewYork-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, Bellevue, and Elmhurst, are subject to the same standard of care obligations as any other facility. See the hospital malpractice page for how these claims are built.

Gynecology and Fertility Malpractice

Gynecological malpractice includes failure to diagnose ovarian or cervical cancer, missed or delayed diagnosis of endometriosis, and complications from unnecessary or improperly performed procedures. Fertility malpractice covers IVF errors, embryo mishandling, medication protocol failures, and genetic screening errors at fertility clinics. These cases are governed by the same standard of care framework as all New York medical malpractice claims, but require expert witnesses from reproductive medicine. See the gynecology malpractice and fertility malpractice pages.

Unnecessary Surgery

Surgery performed without a legitimate medical indication, based on misdiagnosis, exaggerated findings, or failure to consider non-surgical alternatives, constitutes malpractice in New York. Tens of thousands of unnecessary surgeries are performed annually in the United States, and each one exposes the patient to anesthesia risks, surgical complications, and recovery burdens they should never have faced. The unnecessary surgery page addresses how these claims are proven.

How to Prove Medical Malpractice in New York

Medical malpractice in New York requires proving four elements: a doctor-patient relationship existed, the provider deviated from the accepted standard of care, that deviation caused the patient's harm, and the harm resulted in measurable damages.

The standard of care is defined as what a reasonably competent physician in the same specialty would have done under the same circumstances. It is not perfection. A doctor can make a judgment call and be wrong without committing malpractice. What crosses the line is a departure from what the medical community accepts as appropriate practice, ignoring a red-flag symptom, skipping a test that guidelines require, misreading imaging that was clearly abnormal, or failing to inform a patient of a finding in their own record.

Causation is where defense attorneys fight hardest. They argue the outcome would have been the same regardless of the doctor's conduct. Expert witnesses from the relevant specialty, oncology, obstetrics, anesthesiology, surgery, rebut that argument by establishing what the patient's condition would have been with proper care and how the departure specifically changed the outcome.

Expert testimony is legally required in New York medical malpractice cases. Under CPLR 3012-a, a Certificate of Merit must be filed with the complaint, certifying that an attorney has consulted with a medical expert who has reviewed the case and found a reasonable basis for the claim. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. retains board-certified specialists across every relevant discipline before a case is filed.

Why the Attorney-CPA Credential Matters in Medical Malpractice Cases

Medical malpractice cases in New York frequently involve significant economic damages, lost income over a working lifetime, future medical costs for ongoing care, diminished earning capacity when a patient cannot return to their prior occupation. These figures are contested by defense experts who use actuarial models to minimize what they present to juries.

Attorney Michael Gunzburg holds dual licensure as a New York personal injury attorney and a Certified Public Accountant. That credential means the economic analysis at the foundation of your damages case is built with the rigor of a forensic financial expert, not an estimate. When the defense presents its economic model, Michael Gunzburg, P.C. can engage it at a level most personal injury attorneys cannot.

This advantage is particularly significant in cases involving permanent injury, cancer that required additional treatment cycles, birth injuries with lifetime care needs, surgical errors that ended a career.

What You Can Recover in a New York Medical Malpractice Case

New York medical malpractice victims can recover economic damages and non-economic damages.

Economic damages include all past and future medical expenses caused by the malpractice, additional surgeries, chemotherapy cycles, physical therapy, rehabilitation, and home care costs that would not have been necessary with proper treatment. They also include lost wages during recovery and loss of earning capacity if you cannot return to your previous work.

Non-economic damages compensate for pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and disfigurement from additional procedures or the progression of an untreated condition.

In wrongful death cases, surviving family members can recover for loss of financial support, funeral and burial costs, and the deceased's conscious pain and suffering before death. See the wrongful death page for how those claims are structured and their separate two-year filing deadline.

New York does not cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, unlike many other states. Juries determine the full value of pain and suffering based on the evidence presented.

Important Deadlines in New York Medical Malpractice Cases

The standard medical malpractice statute of limitations in New York is 30 months, two and a half years, from the date of the malpractice or from the end of continuous treatment by the same provider for the same condition. This deadline is governed by CPLR 214-a.

Several exceptions and modifications apply:

Cancer misdiagnosis - Lavern's Law. For failure to diagnose cancer cases, the clock runs from when the patient discovered the malpractice, not when it occurred, subject to an outer limit of seven years from the act itself. This is a significant protection for patients who did not know their cancer had been missed until years later.

Infant plaintiffs. When the malpractice victim is a child, New York's infancy tolling provision generally extends the deadline. For birth injury cases not involving public hospitals, parents typically have until the child's 10th birthday to file.

Public hospitals - Notice of Claim. If the malpractice occurred at an NYC Health + Hospitals facility, a Bellevue Hospital Center, Kings County Hospital, or any other city-operated institution, a Notice of Claim must be filed within 90 days of the malpractice or its discovery. Missing this deadline bars the claim against the public entity regardless of its merits. The lawsuit itself must be filed within one year and 90 days.

Continuous treatment doctrine. The statute of limitations may be tolled, paused, when the patient receives continuous treatment from the same physician or practice for the same condition. The clock does not start until that treatment ends.

These deadlines are not flexible. The New York Court of Appeals has consistently refused to extend them for equitable reasons when the procedural requirements were not met. Contact an attorney before assuming your deadline has passed, the calculation depends on specific facts.

What Happens After You Call Michael Gunzburg, P.C.

Free Case Evaluation by an Attorney

Michael Gunzburg reviews your medical timeline, symptoms, test results, records, and the outcome you experienced. You receive an honest assessment of whether your situation is likely to support a malpractice claim, with no charge and no obligation. If the facts do not support a departure from the standard of care, you will be told that directly.

Expert Medical Review

Every case that moves forward is reviewed by board-certified specialists in the relevant discipline, oncology, obstetrics, surgery, anesthesiology, or another specialty as required. These experts review every record, imaging study, pathology report, and consultation note. They identify exactly where the provider's conduct departed from what the standard of care required and what that departure cost you.

Investigation and Evidence Preservation

Medical records are subpoenaed in full, including internal notes, amended reports, and documentation that a routine records request may not capture. Evidence that can disappear, altered records, surveillance footage in hospital facilities, equipment logs, is identified and preserved early. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. has uncovered altered medical records in past cases and knows what to look for.

Negotiation or Trial

Most medical malpractice cases settle when defendants see the strength of the expert testimony and evidence. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. prepares every case for trial from day one. That approach changes what insurers offer. If they refuse to pay fair value, the case goes to a jury. The firm has a track record of multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements because it is genuinely prepared to try cases, and opposing counsel knows it.

Proven Results in NYC Medical Malpractice Cases

$20 million structured settlement - birth injury, cerebral palsy due to delivery room negligence

$5.6 million confidential settlement - medical malpractice

$3.3 million wrongful death settlement - anesthesia malpractice during elective surgery, records found to have been altered during litigation

$2.3 million jury verdict - failure to diagnose breast cancer, Elmhurst Medical Center

$1.9 million settlement - breast cancer misdiagnosis in a patient who became pregnant; mastectomy required at seven months pregnant

$1.75 million settlement - failure to diagnose vulvar cancer over four and a half years of documented complaints

$1.5 million pre-trial settlement - breast cancer misdiagnosis, breastfeeding patient

$1.35 million settlement - botched orthopedic surgery resulting in permanent nerve damage

$1.2 million settlement - vulvar cancer misdiagnosed as yeast infection

Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome in future cases.

Key Takeaways

• New York's medical malpractice statute of limitations is 30 months from the date of malpractice, but cancer misdiagnosis cases, infant plaintiffs, and public hospital claims each carry different rules.
• Claims against public hospitals require a Notice of Claim within 90 days - missing this deadline is almost always fatal to the claim.
• Expert testimony is legally required in every New York medical malpractice case; a Certificate of Merit must be filed with the complaint.
• New York does not cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases - pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life are recoverable in full.
• Attorney Michael Gunzburg's dual credentials as a licensed attorney and CPA allow economic damages, future medical costs, lost earning capacity, to be calculated with forensic precision rather than estimates.
• Cases are handled on a contingency fee basis - no fees unless the firm wins.

Common Questions About Medical Malpractice in New York City

What is the statute of limitations for medical malpractice in New York?

The standard deadline is 30 months from the date of the malpractice or from the end of continuous treatment by the same provider for the same condition. Cancer misdiagnosis cases operate under Lavern's Law, which starts the clock when the patient discovers the malpractice rather than when it occurred, subject to a seven-year outer limit. Claims against public hospitals require a Notice of Claim within 90 days. For children, New York's infancy tolling rule generally extends the deadline to age 10 when public hospitals are not involved. Because the calculation depends on specific facts, consult an attorney before assuming your time has expired.

How do you prove medical malpractice in New York?

Proving medical malpractice requires showing that a provider deviated from the standard of care and that deviation caused measurable harm. The standard of care is what a reasonably competent physician in the same specialty would have done under the same circumstances. Proof comes primarily through expert testimony, board-certified specialists in the relevant field review the medical records, identify the departure, and explain to a jury how it changed the patient's outcome. New York also requires a Certificate of Merit filed with the complaint, certifying that an attorney has consulted a medical expert who found a reasonable basis for the claim.

How much is a medical malpractice case worth in New York?

Case value depends on the severity of the harm, the medical expenses caused by the malpractice, the patient's lost income and earning capacity, and the pain and suffering involved. New York does not cap non-economic damages, so juries can award the full value of pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. Cases involving permanent injury, wrongful death, or significant lost income often reach seven figures. The economic component, future medical costs and lost earning capacity, is often the most heavily contested and benefits significantly from the forensic financial analysis that Michael Gunzburg, P.C. provides through the attorney's CPA credential.

What qualifies as medical malpractice in New York?

Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider's treatment of a patient falls below the accepted standard of care and that failure causes harm. It is not enough that the outcome was bad, a bad outcome without a departure from the standard of care is not malpractice. Common qualifying situations include failure to diagnose or delayed diagnosis of a serious condition, surgical errors, anesthesia mistakes, medication errors, birth injuries from delivery negligence, and hospital-level institutional failures. The key question is always: would a competent physician in the same specialty have done something different?

Can I sue a hospital for medical malpractice in New York?

Yes. Hospitals bear independent liability for institutional failures separate from the individual physicians who treated you. Hospital liability arises when the institution failed to adequately staff units, credentialed a physician with a known history of negligence, did not follow infection control protocols, or had systemic gaps in patient monitoring. A claim can be brought against both the hospital and individual providers. If the hospital is operated by the City of New York, including NYC Health + Hospitals facilities, a Notice of Claim must be filed within 90 days of the malpractice.

How long does a medical malpractice case take in New York?

Most New York medical malpractice cases take two to four years from filing to resolution. The timeline reflects mandatory expert disclosure, deposition of all treating physicians and experts, and the court's scheduling. Cases that settle do so most often after expert depositions, when both sides have a clear picture of the testimony. Cases that go to trial take longer. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. prepares every case for trial from the outset, that posture typically results in stronger settlement offers because the defense knows the case will be tried if necessary.

Do I need a lawyer if the hospital offered me a settlement?

Yes. An early settlement offer from a hospital or its insurer is designed to close your claim quickly and cheaply, before you know the full extent of your injuries, before experts have reviewed your records, and before you understand what your case is actually worth. Accepting a settlement without legal representation almost always results in recovering less than the case is worth, and settlement agreements typically include releases that permanently bar any future claims. The consultation is free and the firm works on contingency, so there is no cost to having your case evaluated before deciding whether to accept any offer.

What does medical malpractice on contingency mean?

A contingency fee arrangement means Michael Gunzburg, P.C. receives no payment unless the case results in a recovery for you. There are no hourly fees, no retainers, and no out-of-pocket costs for medical experts, record retrieval, or trial preparation while the case is pending. If no compensation is recovered, you owe nothing. When the firm does win, the fee is a percentage of the recovery. This structure ensures that access to experienced legal representation does not depend on a client's financial resources.

What is a Certificate of Merit in a New York medical malpractice case?

A Certificate of Merit is a document required by CPLR 3012-a that must be filed alongside the complaint in a New York medical malpractice lawsuit. It certifies that the attorney has consulted with at least one physician licensed in New York or another state who has reviewed the case and found a reasonable basis to believe that the defendant deviated from the standard of care. The Certificate of Merit requirement exists to screen out cases that lack expert support before they consume court resources. Michael Gunzburg, P.C. retains expert consultants before filing any malpractice case.

Areas Michael Gunzburg, P.C. Serves

Michael Gunzburg, P.C. represents medical malpractice victims throughout all five New York City boroughs and surrounding counties. Cases are handled in Manhattan, including Midtown, the Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, and Washington Heights, Brooklyn, including downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Flatbush, Queens, including Flushing, Astoria, Jamaica, and Long Island City, the Bronx, including Fordham, Riverdale, and Hunts Point, and Staten Island. The firm handles claims against private physicians, private hospital systems, and public facilities including NYC Health + Hospitals and Bellevue Hospital Center.

Other Medical Malpractice Services

• Failure to Diagnose Cancer, delayed and missed cancer diagnoses across all cancer types
• Birth Injury Lawyer NYC, delivery room negligence and infant harm
• Cerebral Palsy Lawyer NYC, brain damage from birth injury malpractice
• Anesthesia Error Attorney, anesthesia mistakes during surgery
• Surgical Mistakes, wrong-site surgery, organ damage, retained instruments
• Hospital Malpractice, institutional negligence by NYC hospitals
• Gynecology Malpractice, OB/GYN negligence and reproductive harm
• Fertility Malpractice, IVF errors and fertility clinic negligence
• Unnecessary Surgery, operations performed without medical justification
• Delayed Surgical Treatment, harm from failure to operate when indicated
• Nurse Malpractice, nursing errors and failure to act on patient deterioration