Brooklyn · Medical malpractice
Brooklyn Medical Malpractice Lawyer: Reviewing a Possible Claim
A Brooklyn medical malpractice claim usually focuses on whether a doctor, hospital or other provider departed from accepted care, and whether that departure caused harm that would otherwise have been avoided.
A poor outcome alone is not proof. You do not need a legal theory or a complete chart to ask Licatesi Law Group to review what happened.
A useful first account
The sequence of care
Before the first visit
Symptoms, and when they started
First visit and tests
What was known and ordered
The decision
Diagnosis, procedure, medication or discharge
What changed
New symptoms, results or complications
Later care
A different diagnosis or corrective treatment
The legal question sits between the decision and what changed: could a different decision reasonably have changed the outcome?
Where a review begins
Start with the sequence of care
A useful first account is specific but not elaborate. What brought you to the provider? What symptoms and test results were available then? What decision followed, and when did another clinician identify a different problem?
These questions help separate the underlying illness from the additional harm you believe the care caused. A later diagnosis does not establish that an earlier one was negligent. A reviewer needs to know what the earlier clinician could reasonably have recognized, and whether a different decision would have changed the outcome.
The same distinction matters after surgery or a medication error. A complication can occur despite appropriate care, while a preventable departure may require further investigation. No webpage can decide which happened in your case.
Records
Which records make the question answerable?
Begin with the dates and places of treatment, the names of providers you remember, and copies of anything already in your possession. Each kind of record answers a different part of the timeline.
- Test results, images and radiology reports
- What information was available when a decision was made.
- Discharge instructions and prescriptions
- What you were told to do, and what was prescribed.
- Referral notes and appointment summaries
- Handoffs between clinicians and whether follow-up happened.
- Later treatment records
- When a condition was recognized. Not, by themselves, what an earlier provider should have done.
- Messages and portal notes
- What you reported, and when.
Write a short chronology
In your own words, list symptoms before the first visit, tests or treatment at each visit, changes afterward, and any later diagnosis or corrective care. Mark uncertain dates as uncertain.
If one facility holds imaging and another holds the follow-up chart, list both. It is better to identify a missing record than to fill the gap from memory as if it were documented.
Look for handoffs
A chronology can reveal a test ordered but not followed up, a delayed referral, or a new symptom reported after discharge. Those are questions to investigate, not proof that anyone ignored a result.
If another clinician later gave you a different explanation, record the wording as accurately as you can and identify the visit. Keep receiving the care you need: a legal intake is not medical advice.
The investigation
What must the investigation establish?
The hardest question is often not whether a result was disappointing, but whether the alleged mistake actually changed the patient's course. That may require review by an appropriately qualified medical professional as well as legal analysis.
A treatment relationship
The provider was responsible for some part of your care.
A departure from accepted care
What was done fell below the care called for at the time.
An injury
You suffered harm beyond the condition you already had.
Causation
The departure, not the underlying illness, caused that additional harm.
Several providers may appear in one chart. Their roles should be reconstructed rather than treating a facility name as the answer to who is responsible. If a record shows a warning sign, the next question is who received it, when, and what happened afterward.
Incomplete records do not prevent an initial conversation. The review may identify further records or medical review needed before the firm can advise whether a lawsuit makes sense. That is different from promising that every suspected mistake will support one.
Published firm results
Medical malpractice results
These are the medical malpractice results in the firm's published results archive. The published descriptions do not say where the care took place, and they are not presented here as Brooklyn cases.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case depends on its own facts.
See the full verdicts and settlements archive$950,000
$950,000 Settlement for a Preventable Eye Injury
The Licatesi Law Group fought for a woman who suffered permanent blindness in one eye after an alleged failure to identify a retained contact lens during an ophthalmologic examination.
$1,300,000
$1,300,000 Medical Malpractice settlement
47 year old male police officer injured as a result of surgical malpractice by an orthopedic surgeon resulting in an inability to work and permanent impairment of gait.
Read the case study$3,000,000
$3 Million Dollar Settlement — Failure to Diagnose
Failure to diagnose the plaintiff's cancer resulting in a $3 million dollar settlement.
Time limits
Do not assume the deadline starts where you think it does
New York's general medical malpractice period under CPLR 214-a is two years and six months. The start and end of that period may depend on the facts and on special rules.
Continued care does not automatically extend it. The continuous-treatment question concerns treatment for the same condition; in Nykorchuck v. Henriques, the Court of Appeals rejected that theory on the treatment facts before it. Other circumstances and defendants may require a different analysis.
Collect the dates now
Gather the dates of visits and follow-up appointments, then ask a New York attorney to calculate the applicable deadlines promptly. Do not wait to assemble a perfect chart before making that call.
Treated in another borough? See Staten Island (our Brooklyn office serves Staten Island), Queens, Bronx or Manhattan, or find an office near you.
Questions
Questions patients ask before a Brooklyn malpractice review
A poor outcome alone is not proof of malpractice. A claim generally needs a treatment relationship, a departure from accepted care, an injury, and a causal link showing the departure changed the patient's course. Whether that happened in your care requires a review of the records and, often, an appropriately qualified medical professional.
New York's general medical malpractice period under CPLR 214-a is two years and six months, but when it starts and ends can depend on the facts and on special rules. Continued care does not automatically extend it. Collect your visit dates and ask a New York attorney to calculate the deadlines that apply to your situation promptly.
Records that show the sequence of care: test results, images and radiology reports, discharge instructions, prescriptions, referral notes and later treatment records. A short chronology in your own words helps too. Mark uncertain dates as uncertain, and list who may hold records you do not have.
Care at a hospital, clinic, private practice or other provider can be reviewed. Several clinicians may appear in one chart: one orders a test, another reads it, someone else decides on follow-up. Their roles need to be reconstructed, because a facility name alone does not answer who may be responsible.
It depends on the evidence. Treatment records and work information can show the consequences of an injury, but an assessment has to separate the underlying condition from the additional harm the care allegedly caused. Past results do not predict what a new claim is worth.
Talk through what you know
Licatesi Law Group can discuss whether further records or medical review are needed and whether a claim may be available. Describe the Brooklyn care at issue. An inquiry does not establish malpractice or guarantee a result.
What to bring
- Your timeline, with uncertain dates marked
- The records you already have
- Names of providers and facilities you remember
- The questions you cannot yet answer