Recently in Illinois, an infant was rushed to an emergency room by his parents for incessant crying and vomiting that prevented him from nursing. The emergency room physician diagnosed the infant with a gastrointestinal colic and sent the family home with instructions on how to cope with the colic. The next day, the infant suffered a painful death, due to a rare heart defect that the doctor could have discovered by ordering a standard chest x-ray. When the infant’s parents hired Chicago medical malpractice lawyers and sued both the hospital and the emergency room physician, a jury found both defendants liable for $2,250,000.

Multi-million dollar medical malpractice verdicts beg the question of how juries arrive at such numbers. What is the just measure of punishment for a doctor’s error that can adequately compensate the loss of grieving parents? Obviously no amount of money could ever compensate parents or make them whole after the loss of a child. Even if such a number could be reached, is it really fair to make doctors liable?

In every profession or line of work, people, even licensed professionals, make mistakes. Unfortunately for medical professionals, every day mistakes can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits involving unfathomable tragedies such as brain damage, birth injuries, quadriplegia, amputations, and death.

The Illinois legal system has guidelines for striking the most appropriate balance between protecting both patients and doctors through (1) restrictions on filing cases, (2) caps on certain types of damages, and (3) comparative negligence testing.

Filing an Illinois Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

An Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit, in most instances, needs to be filed within a 2 year statute of limitations period from the date that malpractice could have been reasonably discovered, but no more than 4 years from the date of treatment. This means that some patients are given a slightly extended period of time after medical treatment until they reasonably discover medical malpractice.

For instance, when a woman undergoes surgery to prevent future pregnancies and winds up pregnant three years later, she still has one year to file a lawsuit, because she could not have reasonably discovered the malpractice until she became pregnant three years after surgery. Despite the extension given for the discovery of malpractice, all cases are subject to a four year limitation. Thus, if the woman became pregnant 5 years later, she would no longer be able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

The Illinois medical malpractice statute of limitations exists to protect doctors against stale claims. As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to formulate a defense against acts committed in the past. Furthermore, the statute of limitations exists so that doctors are not forced to worry about their mistakes for an unlimited amount of time. The statute of limitations can be longer in cases involving minors or shorter against government entities.

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