If a doctor or hospital missed something a competent provider would have caught, a Long Island medical malpractice lawyer at Silver Law Group can review your records and tell you whether that error is a case. We handle claims against physicians, surgeons, nurses and hospitals across Nassau and Suffolk counties, from the Town of Hempstead out to Brookhaven.
New York gives most malpractice patients two and a half years to sue, and only 90 days to give notice when a public hospital is involved. Start the review now, while every deadline is still open. Call 212-470-4544 for a free case review. You pay no fee unless we recover money for you, and an attorney can meet you at home or at your hospital bedside.
Do You Have a Medical Malpractice Case on Long Island?
A New York malpractice claim has four parts, and you have to prove all of them. If one is missing, the case fails no matter how badly you were hurt.
- The provider agreed to treat you. That doctor-patient relationship creates the legal duty to treat you competently. A physician who never took you on as a patient owes you no such duty.
- The care departed from accepted medical practice. The provider did something, or failed to do something, that a reasonably careful practitioner in the same specialty would not have done. A physician expert has to say so under oath.
- The departure caused your harm. It has to be a substantial factor in your injury, not just a mistake that happened alongside it.
- You suffered a real injury, such as a worse prognosis, a second surgery or a permanent loss of function.
A bad outcome alone is not malpractice. Surgery carries known risks, and some cancers spread even when the care was flawless. What matters is whether your harm came from the illness or from a choice the standard of care rules out.
Two stroke patients can both lose the ability to speak. The first was scanned and treated on time, and her result is a tragedy. The second was sent home from the ER with a migraine diagnosis and no imaging, and he may have a case.
Misdiagnosis, Surgical, ER, Medication and Birth Injury Errors
Most of the malpractice cases we review on Long Island fit one of five patterns, and each causes harm in its own way.
- A delayed cancer diagnosis happens when a radiologist reads a suspicious mammogram as normal, or a primary care doctor never follows up on a rising PSA or an abnormal blood test. The tumor keeps growing while your chart says nothing is wrong, and a cancer that was treatable can reach a later stage.
- Retained surgical objects are sponges, clamps or broken instrument tips left inside you after an operation because the count was skipped or wrong. Many patients find out months later, through an infection or pain or a scan ordered for something else.
- Missed stroke or sepsis in the ER. Stroke treatment works only within a narrow window, and sepsis can move to organ failure within hours. When an emergency department calls slurred speech anxiety, or sends a feverish patient with a racing heart home without bloodwork, that window closes.
- Anesthesia and dosing errors include too much sedation, a missed allergy, a decimal in the wrong place on an order, or a drug that reacts with one already in your chart. An opioid or blood-thinner overdose can do serious harm within minutes.
- Birth injuries follow from ignoring a distressed fetal heart tracing, waiting too long to order a C-section, or using excess force during delivery. The results can include oxygen deprivation, brain injury, or damage to the nerves of the baby’s shoulder.
Other errors also qualify, including nursing failures, bedsores in a hospital bed and missed post-surgical infections. Bring the chart and we will tell you whether yours does.
Hospital Negligence Claims at Long Island Hospitals
A hospital is legally responsible for the mistakes of the people it employs. That rule, called vicarious liability, covers staff nurses, residents, hospitalists, technicians and pharmacists acting within their jobs. Our hospital malpractice lawyers bring these claims against the large private hospitals on the Island. These include North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island in Mineola, Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip and South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore.
The harder question is who employed the doctor. Many physicians who treat you inside these buildings belong to private practice groups and only hold privileges to work at the hospital. That is common for surgeons, anesthesiologists, radiologists and emergency physicians. The hospital usually is not liable for an independent physician’s own errors, so the claim goes against that doctor and the practice group.
There are exceptions. If you came in through the emergency room and the hospital assigned you a doctor you never chose, a court may treat that doctor as the hospital’s agent. A hospital can also be directly negligent through understaffed units, ignored protocols, or giving privileges to a surgeon it had reason to doubt.
Naming the wrong defendant can sink a case that was otherwise strong. Lawyers for hospital negligence sort out employment, privileges and contracts in the first weeks, using the hospital’s own records.
Claims Against Nassau University Medical Center or Stony Brook University Hospital
At these two public hospitals, the deadline that matters first is 90 days, not two and a half years.
Nassau University Medical Center is run by the Nassau Health Care Corporation, a public benefit corporation. Under Public Authorities Law 3415 and General Municipal Law 50-e, you must serve a written notice of claim within 90 days of the malpractice before you can sue. The notice states what happened, when and where it happened, and your injuries. If you miss the 90 days, you have to ask a court for permission to file late, and the court does not have to grant it.
Stony Brook University Hospital is part of the State University of New York, so a claim against it is a claim against the State. That claim cannot be filed in Suffolk Supreme Court. It goes to the New York State Court of Claims, where a judge decides the case without a jury. Court of Claims Act 10(3) requires you to file and serve either the claim itself or a notice of intention within 90 days.
If a private doctor treated you at either hospital, the ordinary deadlines can apply to that doctor at the same time. One injury can run on two clocks.
What Is a Long Island Medical Malpractice Claim Worth?
Nobody can honestly value your case before reading your records and talking to your doctors. The law does set out what you can claim.
Economic damages cover losses you can document with a bill or a pay stub:
- Past medical bills, including corrective surgery and rehabilitation
- Future care: therapy, medication, home health aides, equipment, changes to your home
- Earnings you lost while you couldn’t work
- Lost future earning capacity if the injury keeps you from your job or your field
Non-economic damages cover what the error took from your daily life:
- Physical pain and suffering, past and future
- Loss of enjoyment of life, such as the work, family routines and activities you can no longer manage
New York has no cap on medical malpractice damages. Many states limit pain and suffering awards in these cases. New York does not, so a jury in Mineola or Riverhead decides the full amount from the evidence.
That evidence has to be built. Future losses are proven through your treating doctors, a life-care planner and an economist, and that work starts before the case is filed.
Wrongful Death Claims After Medical Malpractice
When malpractice kills a patient, EPTL 5-4.1 lets the estate’s personal representative sue for the family. Recovery is limited to pecuniary loss, which means the financial value of what your loved one provided. Courts measure that loss under the statute’s companion damages section, EPTL 5-4.3.
- Lost income and financial support
- Household services the person performed
- The value of parental guidance for children
- Funeral and medical expenses
Grief is not on that list. The Grieving Families Act would have allowed families to recover for emotional loss, but Governor Hochul vetoed it on December 5, 2025, so the old rule still applies. The estate can also bring a separate claim for any conscious pain your loved one suffered before death.
How a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Moves Forward
Each step of a malpractice case builds the proof the next step needs.
- We request your complete chart from every provider involved. That includes nursing notes, imaging, lab results, medication records and the electronic audit trail showing who entered what and when.
- A physician in the relevant specialty reviews the chart. The expert tells us whether the care departed from accepted practice and whether that departure caused your injury. If the answer is no, we tell you plainly, and you owe nothing for the review.
- The complaint is filed with a certificate of merit. Under CPLR 3012-a, your attorney must certify that they consulted a physician and concluded there is a reasonable basis for the case. Without it, the case cannot proceed.
- Both sides exchange records, and then the depositions begin. You, the doctors and the nurses each answer questions under oath. The defendant doctor’s deposition is often where a case turns, because the doctor has to explain the decision recorded in the chart.
- Mediation or a court settlement conference. The defense insurer makes offers, and you alone decide whether to accept one.
- Trial. If the case doesn’t settle, a jury hears it at Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola or Suffolk County Supreme Court in Riverhead, with experts on both sides.
We prepare every case for step six from the start. The insurer sets its offer based on whether it believes your lawyer will actually try the case.
What a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Costs
You pay nothing up front and nothing by the hour. Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee. Our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you and is paid out of the settlement or verdict. If there is no recovery, you owe no fee. The retainer agreement explains this in writing before any work begins, including how case expenses are handled.
In medical malpractice cases, state law caps that percentage. Judiciary Law 474-a sets a sliding scale on the amount recovered:
- 30% of the first $250,000
- 25% of the next $250,000
- 20% of the next $500,000
- 15% of the next $250,000
- 10% of anything above $1.25 million
The percentage drops as the recovery grows, so you keep a larger share of a serious case. The scale is a ceiling that binds every medical malpractice attorney in New York. Firms differ in the work they put into your case, not in the rate.
Medical Malpractice Deadlines in New York
Most claims expire two and a half years after the malpractice. CPLR 214-a starts the clock on the date of the error. If you kept treating with the same provider for the same condition, the clock starts on the date of your last treatment instead.
That continuous treatment rule exists because the law doesn’t expect you to sue a doctor you are still relying on. Routine checkups don’t extend it. The ongoing treatment has to be for the condition that was mishandled.
Several rules change the math:
- For a sponge, clamp or other object left inside your body, you have one year from the date you discovered it, or should reasonably have discovered it. That year applies even if the two and a half years have already run.
- Under Lavern’s Law, a missed cancer or malignant tumor gets a discovery rule. The two and a half years run from when you knew or should have known about the negligence and the injury. No claim can be brought more than seven years after the error.
- A wrongful death claim must be filed within two years of the date of death under EPTL 5-4.1.
- NUMC and Stony Brook claims carry the 90-day notice requirement described above, and it comes due long before any of these.
Courts read every exception narrowly, and the first thing defense lawyers check is the dates. Send us your treatment dates when you first call, so we can work out your deadline before anything else.
Why Long Island Patients Choose Silver Law Group
The doctor malpractice attorneys on the other side are paid by insurers who defend these claims every day. This is how we work for you.
- Trial-ready from the first week, with experts lined up and the chart reviewed as if a jury in Mineola or Riverhead will see it
- We come to you. If you’re recovering at home in Levittown or still admitted at South Shore in Bay Shore, an attorney will meet you there.
- Consultations in English, Spanish and Russian, so you and your family can explain what happened in the language you’re most comfortable in
- Reachable 24/7 at 212-470-4544, which matters when a 90-day notice deadline is counting down
We don’t advertise past results. Your case turns on your chart, your expert and your deadlines, and that is what we spend the first consultation on.
Talk to a Long Island Medical Malpractice Lawyer Today
Call 212-470-4544 at any hour for a free consultation with an attorney for medical malpractice. You can meet us at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, in Midtown Manhattan, or ask an attorney to come to you in Nassau or Suffolk. Bring your discharge papers, the names of the doctors and hospitals, and the dates you were treated. The dates tell us which deadline applies, and the chart tells us whether you have a case.