Medical Malpractice Claim Requirements

You can’t file a medical malpractice lawsuit for just anything. Georgia state law has specific requirements for medical malpractice cases.

Read on to learn the requirements for medical malpractice cases in Georgia.

Georgia Requirements

Statute of Limitations

Georgia state law provides you with two years from the date of your injury to file a medical malpractice suit.

Additionally, the state gives you five years from the date of the negligent or wrongful act to take legal action. So, if you don’t experience symptoms from your medical malpractice injury within five years of the procedure, you must suffer in silence.

There is one exception to the five-year rule, however. If a medical professional accidentally leaves a “foreign object” in your body, you must file suit within one year of your discovery of the object.

Expert Testimony

Georgia requires you to submit an expert testimony with your lawsuit. That means you must have an expert affidavit providing a sworn opinion with respect to at least one negligent act conducted by the health care provider that you intend to sue. In addition, the expert must provide a factual basis for their claims.

Damages Cap

Certain kinds of medical malpractice damages have a cap, according to Georgia state law. So, even after you’re awarded a certain amount of damages by a jury, Georgia law caps the true amount that you’ll receive.

These caps only apply to noneconomic damages, including the following:

-Pain and suffering

-Anxiety

-Mental anguish

-Loss of enjoyment

-Lost companionship

-Scarring

-Other difficult-to-quantify losses prompted by malpractice

Georgia state law caps noneconomic damages at $350,000 for any single medical malpractice claim against health care providers. If more than one facility is held accountable, the cap jumps to $700,000. For one single medical malpractice case, there’s a total cap of $1.05 million for noneconomic damages.

We Can Help

If you’ve been wronged by a medical professional, you deserve to recover any damages you incurred as a result. Our attorneys here at The Tolson Firm, LLC are highly experienced in this area of the law and have helped many other people just like you. Don’t hesitate to contact our firm with your case right away. After all, it’s your health on the line.

Call the Atlanta lawyers at The Tolson Firm, LLC today at (404) 800-9166 to speak with an attorney about your medical malpractice case.

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