Can I file a medical negligence lawsuit in Texas? What are the time limits?

Question:

I have been suffering severe back pain ever since I had spinal surgery to fuse some discs four years ago. In a recent check up, I had x-rays done and it turns out the surgery was done incorrectly, and I will have to have another surgery to fix the problem.

I know there is a time limit to file a medical malpractice suit in Texas, and someone also told me Texas has a cap on the amount of money that can be awarded. How does that work? I have been unable to work for over three years because of severe spinal pain.

Answer:

Yes, there is a time limit to file a medical malpractice lawsuit in Texas. It's governed by a law called the statute of limitations, which gives an injured patient two years from the date of the alleged malpractice to go to court and file a lawsuit.

If you did not discover the malpractice right away (which sounds like may be the case in your situation), the two year "clock" does not start running until the day you actually did discover (or should have reasonably discovered) that malpractice may have occurred. But Texas also has a larger “catch-all” statute of limitations, which requires all medical malpractice plaintiffs to get their lawsuit filed within 10 years of the alleged malpractice, no matter when the harm was actually discovered.

As far as medical malpractice damages caps -- which place a statutory limit on the amount of money that a successful medical malpractice plaintiff can recover -- Texas has placed a cap of $250,000 on non-economic damages in cases filed against an individual doctor or other individual care provider, or against a single health care facility.

So, what are non-economic damages? They are the kinds of losses that are not easily calculated (as opposed to medical bills and lost income), and they include compensation for things like the plaintiff’s physical and mental pain and suffering stemming from the malpractice and the resulting medical treatment made necessary by it.

Texas’s cap on non-economic damages is actually pretty complex. In addition to the $250,000 cap on cases against one individual defendant, there is a $500,000 cap if a single claim is filed against two or more health care facilities or institutions. And Texas has enacted an overall $750,000 non-economic damages cap for any single medical malpractice claim, regardless of how many defendants have been found liable for medical negligence