How Long Do You Have to Sue for Medical Malpractice?

Transcript: Hi, I’m Indiana personal injury attorney David Holub.

This video discusses when the time for filing a medical malpractice case might expire if you learned or could only discover the fact that there was malpractice after the two year time period normally limiting when a case can be filed has expired.

According to the Indiana statute, a person generally has only two years to file a malpractice claim after they have had an incident that they allege is malpractice.

However, in certain situations there may be a longer time period beyond this two years if there has been a delay in discovering that there was malpractice. Basically, Indiana courts have said that it’s constitutionally unlawful to apply the two year statute of limitations if a person had no ability to discover a malpractice and the time period for two years has expired.

The type of case that this might classically apply to would be if a doctor did a surgery and left a surgical utensil inside your body and no one discovered it until three or four years later, but then during another procedure or an MRI or a scan that particular instrument was found. The two years would have expired, but it’s because you didn’t have an opportunity to know about the malpractice and know about your right to sue.

This entire area of law of trying to calculate when a statute of limitations may be extended beyond the two years is very complex and more than we could discuss in this particular video. So we suggest that you give us a call if you have a concern that you might have a case and that two years has expired. Also, we want to advise you to keep in mind that if a child is under six years old at the time of a malpractice and they would have sometimes a greater period of time up to eight years or up to their eighth birthday, rather, for when they could file a suit. So we don’t want you to think that by watching this video that in all cases a person is limited to two years.

In fact, the issue is better stated this way: operate under the assumption that it’s two years, but keep in mind that if a child is under six that the time period may be longer and keep in mind that if something has not been capable of being discovered the time period may be longer. So always when you’re in doubt, consult an attorney about specific case facts.

We hope this video has been helpful. We invite you to look at the other videos on our website and we invite you to call us if you have questions about injury claims.

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