In healthcare, few topics carry as much weight — or risk — as medical liability. That’s why for doctors and healthcare professionals, understanding medical malpractice and how it differs from wrongful death involves more than legal technicality. It’s a crucial part of practicing safe, responsible medicine.
Wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuits can arise in many circumstances, not just limited to obvious medical errors.
These terms are often used interchangeably in the public eye, but they have distinct meanings in a legal context. Misunderstanding them can lead to increased liability exposure and potential damage to your reputation and practice.
In this blog, we break down the key distinctions between wrongful death and medical malpractice, highlight real-world examples and provide actionable strategies to help you minimize your legal risks.
Every practicing physician understa
nds that mistakes happen. But when those mistakes stem from deviations in the standard of care, they can open the door to legal consequences. That’s where medical malpractice enters the conversation. Before exploring how these situations can escalate, we need a clear grasp of the medical malpractice definition and how it applies in clinical settings.
Common examples of medical malpractice include:
Medical malpractice occurs when a physician or healthcare provider administers care that results in harm to the patient. In legal terms, four elements must typically be proven in medical malpractice claims:
This framework provides legal clarity. But for healthcare professionals, it also serves as a checklist to ensure every patient interaction meets clinical and ethical standards.
To better understand the risks, it’s helpful to explore common situations that result in medical malpractice claims:
Medical errors often occur not because of individual incompetence but due to systemic breakdowns. As medical malpractice case stories illustrate, recognizing root causes can help mitigate risks. Those include:
While malpractice may or may not result in serious harm, wrongful death always always involves the gravest outcome: loss of life. From a legal standpoint, wrongful death results from a wrongful act or negligence, not just misconduct. This distinction carries weight. It also broadens the circle of people involved in litigation, often including grieving families who may feel a deep sense of injustice.
A wrongful death lawsuit is a legal action that allows families to seek justice for a loved one's death caused by a wrongful act or negligence.
Wrongful death occurs when a person dies as a result of someone else’s negligence or misconduct. In the healthcare setting, that “someone else” is often a doctor, nurse, hospital, or other provider. It’s critical to understand that a wrongful death claim is not limited to medical mistakes. A car accident caused by a drunken driver could trigger one, too.
The question often comes up in emotionally charged situations. From a legal standpoint, a wrongful death lawsuit is a civil case—a civil claim filed by survivors (or the estate) of the deceased. It seeks compensation for losses such as:
These lawsuits are not about punishing providers but about compensating families and holding negligent parties accountable.
To put this into a medical context, these are examples that may lead to medical wrongful death lawsuits:
In each scenario, failure to meet expected standards of care plays a central role.
The answer to this question varies by state but healthcare professionals are often surprised to learn just how many people may be legally entitled to file a wrongful death claim:
Understanding this broader plaintiff pool reinforces the importance of good documentation and communication — not just for patients, but for families as well.
In everyday practice, doctors focus on clinical details. But legally, distinctions matter, too. A wrongful death lawsuit is a specific type of personal injury lawsuit brought by surviving family members when a fatal injury is caused by negligence or malpractice. Understanding the difference between medical malpractice vs. wrongful death can shape how you approach patient care, interact with families, and protect yourself legally. Here’s how the two compare.
While there’s often overlap, the legal frameworks differ significantly:
These distinctions affect everything from claim filing procedures to required documentation and even insurance coverage.
Context helps solidify the differences. Consider:
These legal nuances influence your practice in real, tangible ways:
By staying informed, you can refine your clinical judgment, communication style, and documentation approach to help protect yourself while providing better medical care.
Although physicians are not usually the ones initiating lawsuits, understanding how a medical wrongful death lawsuit unfolds provides valuable insight. Wrongful death lawsuits allow families to seek compensation for losses resulting from negligence. This knowledge can help you identify high-risk moments in patient care and take proactive steps to avoid legal actions. Prevention starts with perspective.
Not every death in a healthcare setting results in litigation. However, there are recurring patterns and specific types of incidents that often result in wrongful death claims. Medical negligence is a frequent cause of wrongful death claims, as errors or carelessness by healthcare providers can directly lead to patient harm or death:
In all of these examples, attorneys must prove the death was avoidable and directly linked to negligence — creating a bridge between malpractice and wrongful death.
Legal timelines matter. One of the most overlooked areas of risk management is failing to understand your exposure period. The statute of limitations on medical malpractice or wrongful death varies by state:
Knowing these limits helps doctors understand how long records must be retained, years to the date they are protected and when to initiate legal reviews following an adverse event.
While most physicians will never experience the courtroom, awareness of the legal process helps frame your documentation and interactions:
Being proactive in the documentation phase significantly influences outcomes during discovery.
Preventing claims of wrongful death medical malpractice isn’t just about avoiding lawsuits. It’s about building a practice that prioritizes patient safety, communication, and accountability. Healthcare facilities must also prioritize patient safety and accountability to reduce legal risk. These principles are the backbone of any high-reliability healthcare organization.
Implement these foundational habits to mitigate risk:
Your practice culture plays a critical role in outcomes. Encourage your team to:
A transparent, learning-based environment is far more resilient than a punitive one.
Evaluate your professional medical malpractice coverage:
Speak regularly with your risk manager or attorney to close any coverage gaps.
Here are 10 real wrongful-death lawsuits stemming from medical malpractice. In each case, there was a deceased victim whose family pursued a wrongful death lawsuit. These stories can help doctors reflect on the crucial intersection of wrongful death vs. medical malpractice.
In May 2017, 38‑year‑old Maura Gallagher underwent a routine C-section at Stamford Hospital. Despite clear warning signs of preeclampsia — like low platelets and hypertension — doctors overlooked lab results and proceeded with surgery.
Hours later, she suffered a massive brain bleed and died. In April 2025, a jury awarded her family about $22.9 million in a medical wrongful death lawsuit, concluding that the anesthesiologist and medical staff failed to follow the accepted standard of care.
Gallagher’s case emphasizes that even common obstetric procedures can cause death when providers miss critical diagnostic cues.
Seventeen‑year‑old Julius Poppinga visited Providence Cedars‑Sinai Tarzana ER in 2023 complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. The medical provider failed to recognize the severity of his symptoms, diagnosing him with a panic attack and sending him home.
Unfortunately, Julius suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism soon after. His father, former NFL player Brady Poppinga, filed a wrongful death medical malpractice suit, arguing that the failure to recognize stroke‑like symptoms caused Julius’s preventable death.
This case shows how clinicians must treat chest pain — even in teens — with the seriousness it demands.
In October 2024, two-year-old Maya Getahun had a fire ant bite that triggered anaphylaxis. When taken to Piedmont Eastside Medical Center in Georgia, ER staff delayed administering epinephrine for over 20 minutes—a medical error that contributed to her death—and lacked pediatric intubation equipment to manage her airway.
Maya didn’t survive. Her parents filed a medical wrongful death lawsuit in April 2025 against the hospital, alleging that outdated emergency protocols and insufficient pediatric preparation directly led to a preventable death.
This tragedy highlights how emergency teams must be ready for pediatric crises at any time.
In 2018, 84‑year‑old Paul Arndt fell from a toilet at Columbia Memorial Hospital in New York. The hospital reportedly failed to assess his fall risk or provide adequate supervision. In February 2025, a jury awarded $1.5 million to Arndt’s family in a wrongful death medical malpractice verdict, concluding that staff had neglected basic safety measures.
The hospital was held responsible for failing to prevent the fall. The award covered pain and suffering and underscored how even non‑clinical errors — like ignoring fall prevention protocols — can lead to fatal injuries and legal liability.
In April 2025, a federal judge awarded a Buxton, Maine, woman $1.3 million in her medical wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government. She argued that medical staff ignored her husband’s worsening condition and failed to provide adequate treatment, leading to his death and the significant damages suffered by his widow, including both financial and emotional losses.
This government case highlights that even federally employed practitioners must adhere to standard of care. It serves as a reminder to all doctors — federal, private, or VA — that negligence can carry substantial legal consequences, regardless of the care setting.
In April 2025, a Florida jury awarded $45 million to the family of 55‑year‑old James Sada, who died after a heart attack mismanagement at Orlando Health hospitals. This case demonstrates how medical negligence leads to catastrophic outcomes such as the patient's death.
Lawyers cited dozens of delays and failures, including miscommunication and treatment gaps that deprived him of timely intervention. This landmark wrongful death medical malpractice judgment shows how fragmented care across multiple providers can have catastrophic outcomes—and devastating financial and reputational repercussions.
A jury awarded $15.4 million in July 2024 to the family of a 57‑year‑old Connecticut woman (Maria Ocasio) who died following botched anesthesia at Midstate Medical Center. The jury award included non economic damages for pain and suffering, reflecting compensation for the severity of the injuries and loss experienced by the family.
According to reports, the anesthesiologist mismanaged dosage or monitoring during a routine procedure, leading to respiratory collapse and cardiac arrest. This case underscores that medical malpractice definition includes anesthesia errors — a frequent cause of fatal outcomes.
In early 2025, a jury in Georgia awarded $25 million in a medical wrongful death case involving severe preeclampsia that went undiagnosed. OB‑GYNs at a Georgia hospital failed to manage the mother’s condition, leading to a stillbirth. The verdict allocated $15 million for the fetus’s wrongful death and $10 million for the mother’s emotional harm, specifically recognizing the emotional losses she suffered as a result of the stillbirth.
This case emphasizes that maternal care delays can result in both patient and fetal loss, triggering substantial liability.
In 2016, Jacklyn Chamberlin visited Exeter Hospital’s ER in New Hampshire with fever. Staff diagnosed her with a kidney stone, ignoring the UTI indicated by lab results. She died days later from severe sepsis, highlighting the suffering experienced by both Jacklyn and her family as a result of the misdiagnosis.
A wrongful death lawsuit alleged clinicians failed to treat an obvious infection and miscoded test results. While the case remains in litigation, it underscores the critical importance of responding to abnormal labs.
Kenneth Dootson died in 2021 after Yale New Haven Hospital misdiagnosed his metastatic lung cancer as a benign brain lesion. A medical expert later reviewed the pathology and imaging results, confirming that proper pathology review came nearly two years later — too late.
His wife filed a wrongful death medical malpractice lawsuit in February 2024, alleging negligence in tissue sampling and failure to follow up on suspicious imaging results. This case illustrates how diagnostic delays — even by world-class hospitals — can turn stage I disease into terminal illness.
Choosing the right medical malpractice insurance is critical to protecting your career, reputation, and financial well-being. Whether you’re a physician, nurse, or specialist, your policy needs to go beyond basic protection. Not all policies are created equal — and small gaps in coverage can lead to big problems down the road.
It is especially important to ensure your coverage includes punitive damages, which are often awarded in wrongful death and malpractice cases as a form of punishment and deterrent. Here are five key features to evaluate when selecting the right plan:
Wrongful death lawsuits are among the most costly and emotionally charged types of malpractice litigation. Make sure your policy explicitly includes coverage for wrongful death medical malpractice, including associated legal defense costs.
If you change jobs, retire, or switch insurers, you'll need protection for claims filed after your policy ends. Tail coverage ensures you're still protected for incidents that occurred while you were covered.
Some insurers can settle claims without your input. Look for a “consent to settle” provision, which ensures you have a say in whether to resolve or defend a case. This can protect your professional record.
Policies typically have per-claim and annual aggregate limits. Be sure these are high enough to cover both damages and legal fees, especially in specialties with a higher risk of medical wrongful death lawsuits.
Legal defense can quickly exhaust your coverage. A strong policy will cover defense costs in addition to your policy limits, not within them, so your payout protection isn’t drained by attorney fees.
Understanding the difference between wrongful death vs. medical malpractice isn’t just legal trivia—it’s essential for any healthcare professional committed to safe and ethical practice. When negligence leads to a loved one's death, the consequences for families can be devastating, both emotionally and financially. And when those two intersect, the consequences can be devastating for both families and physicians.
By recognizing risk factors, strengthening communication, and staying current with legal standards, doctors can minimize their exposure and continue delivering exceptional care. Stay informed. Stay covered. And above all, stay committed to excellence.
At Indigo, we’re dedicated to standing by healthcare professionals with modernized malpractice insurance solutions. Let us help you protect your practice and your livelihood.
The right malpractice insurance not only protects you from excessive claims, but also provides the support you need to continue offering exceptional care to your patients.
It's time for a more customized medical malpractice insurance experience that provides a high level of customer satisfaction and customer support tools.
Request your custom quote from Indigo today. You can also request a free consultation to discuss your malpractice insurance options with our experienced team.
Image by Douglas Rissing from iStock.
