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Doctors make mistakes. Because medical errors are potentially so much more serious than other kinds of mistakes, doctors and other medical professionals are held to a higher standard in the performance of their duties.
When these standards are violated through negligence or incompetence, the injured victims and their families have the right to recover compensation for the damage caused. Unfortunately, doctors and hospitals are frequently reluctant to admit their mistakes, and they may even try to hide them or cover them up.
Finding out whether a serious consequence resulted from medical negligence or not can be difficult to determine, and medical malpractice cases are some of the most complex and vigorously litigated cases.
Our skilled medical malpractice attorneys at D&W Law Group understand what it takes to develop and present a strong case when malpractice has occurred, and the firm’s co-founders have handled Illinois injury claims for a combined stretch that goes back to 1990.
Reach out to us for a free consultation if you believe you were harmed by a doctor’s negligence or mistake.
Contact D&W Law Group today to discuss what happened to you or your family member.
Medical malpractice can occur due to many different types of medical negligence, errors or mistakes. Some of the most common forms of medical malpractice include:
Each of these categories covers a wide range of specific mistakes, and the medical specialty involved changes what evidence and which expert witnesses a case needs. The table below breaks down what several of the most common categories actually look like in a hospital, clinic, or nursing facility setting.
| Type of Error | What It Often Looks Like |
|---|---|
| Surgical errors | Operating on the wrong site, leaving a sponge or instrument inside the patient, or damaging a nerve or organ through avoidable technique failures |
| Diagnostic errors | Missing signs of cancer, stroke, sepsis, or a heart attack until the condition has advanced past the point where early treatment would have helped |
| Medication errors | Administering the wrong drug, the wrong dose, or a combination of medications that should never be given together |
| Birth injuries | Failing to monitor fetal distress, delaying a needed C-section, or misusing forceps or a vacuum extractor during delivery |
| Anesthesia errors | Improper dosing, failing to monitor a patient’s airway, or losing track of vital signs during an elective procedure |
This is not a complete list. If a hospital, physician, nurse, or specialist departed from the accepted standard of care and you or a family member were hurt as a result, it is worth having the case reviewed.
Illinois medical malpractice law is a form of negligence law, but it carries extra procedural hurdles that ordinary injury claims do not. To win compensation, you generally have to establish four things:
Because these elements almost always turn on technical medical judgment rather than common sense, Illinois law does not let a malpractice case go forward on a plaintiff’s word alone. That is where the affidavit of merit requirement comes in.
Many personal injury cases require us to enlist the aid of experts and professionals to prepare your case. In a medical malpractice case, consulting with experts is required by law.
When filing a medical malpractice lawsuit in Illinois, the plaintiff’s attorney must file an affidavit of merit, certifying that a qualified health professional has reviewed the case and found a reasonable and meritorious basis for it.
Our attorneys will gather your medical records and have them reviewed by specialists who can help us determine if you have a case.
Under that same statute, the reviewing health professional generally must have practiced or taught in the same area of medicine at issue within the last six years, and a written report explaining the basis for the opinion has to be attached to the affidavit.
If the statute of limitations is about to run before that review can be finished, Illinois law allows the affidavit and report to be filed within 90 days after the complaint itself, but only when the deadline would otherwise be missed.
Failing to file a proper affidavit is grounds for dismissal of the case, which is one more reason this step should never be handled without an attorney who does this work regularly.
Like other personal injury cases, medical malpractice cases have a two-year statute of limitations. Under 735 ILCS 5/13-212, you generally have two years from the date you knew, or reasonably should have known, that your injury was caused by medical negligence to file a lawsuit. This is because you may not always immediately know that malpractice occurred.
For instance, if a surgeon left foreign objects such as sponges or clamps inside your body after surgery, you may not find out until the object causes some medical problem down the road. Likewise, if a doctor misses a critical cancer diagnosis, you may not become aware until the cancer is later discovered.
That discovery-based deadline is not open-ended, however. The same statute also sets a four-year statute of repose, meaning no medical malpractice case can be filed more than four years after the date of the negligent act or omission itself, no matter when you discovered the harm.
Therefore, medical malpractice victims may have additional time to file a lawsuit, but never past that outer boundary except in narrow circumstances.
Illinois treats claims involving children differently. When the injured patient is a minor, the deadline is generally eight years from the date of the negligent act, but the claim can never be filed after the child’s 22nd birthday.
That distinction matters most in birth injury and pediatric misdiagnosis cases, where the full extent of harm, such as a developmental delay or a missed genetic condition, sometimes does not become apparent for years.
Contact our experienced medical malpractice attorneys as soon as you believe you may be the victim of a medical mistake so we can make sure important deadlines are not missed.
Illinois medical malpractice claims can seek both economic and non-economic damages. Depending on the facts of your case, that can include:
Illinois does not currently cap the amount of non-economic damages a jury can award in a medical malpractice case. A prior state law that tried to limit pain-and-suffering awards in these cases was struck down, so what a case is worth depends on the facts and the harm, not on an arbitrary ceiling. A financial lens on these numbers matters.
Attorney Mark Curran III, who holds a finance degree alongside his law degree, works through what future medical costs and lost earning capacity actually add up to before a number ever gets discussed with an insurer.
Medical malpractice cases are won or lost on the medical record, so our process starts there. We request the complete chart, not just the summary the hospital wants to hand over, and we have it reviewed by a qualified specialist in the same field before we ever file suit, consistent with what Illinois law requires.
Co-founder Lance C. Dale and co-founder Scott B. Wolfman built the firm around catastrophic injury, wrongful death, and medical malpractice work. The firm also reports membership in the Medical Malpractice Trial Lawyers Association, reflecting a practice focus that goes beyond general personal injury work.
Once we know what happened medically, we turn to what it costs your family going forward: medical bills already paid, care you’ll need for years, and income you’ve lost or will lose. If we accept your case, we advance the litigation costs, including the costs of medical experts, and we only charge a fee if we recover for you.
Clients can also work with our team in English and Spanish, since language should never be the reason a family cannot get a straight answer about their case.
Case results depend on the specific facts of each matter, but here is what D&W Law Group has obtained in past medical malpractice and related wrongful death matters:
| Outcome | Case Type |
|---|---|
| $5.5 million | Medical malpractice: infant suffered a permanent brain injury from a medication overdose |
| $4.3 million | Wrongful death: loss of airway during an elective cardiac procedure |
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Most Chicago medical malpractice lawsuits are filed in the Law Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, which is located at the Richard J. Daley Center, 50 West Washington Street. The Law Division hears civil claims valued at more than $30,000, which covers essentially every serious medical malpractice case involving a lasting injury or a death.
Filing in the right division matters procedurally, but it is only the first step. Cook County judges who handle malpractice dockets are experienced with the expert testimony these cases require, and cases are frequently resolved only after depositions of the treating physicians and the plaintiff’s reviewing expert.
Building that record takes time, which is one more reason to start the process well before any filing deadline is close.
You should talk to a lawyer as soon as you suspect a medical error caused harm.
Illinois requires a qualified health professional to review your case and support an affidavit of merit before a lawsuit can even be filed, and pulling records, identifying the right expert, and getting that review done properly takes time you don’t want to lose against the filing deadline.
In most adult cases, you have two years from the date you knew or reasonably should have known that your injury was caused by medical negligence, but no case can be filed more than four years after the negligent act itself. Those two clocks run independently, and either one can end your case if it’s missed.
That’s common, and it’s exactly why the two-year clock starts from discovery rather than from the date of treatment. Cases involving retained surgical objects, missed cancer diagnoses, or birth injuries that aren’t apparent for years often hinge on pinpointing exactly when a reasonable person would have connected the injury to negligent care.
It’s a sworn statement from your attorney confirming that a qualified health professional reviewed your medical records and believes there’s a reasonable and meritorious basis for the claim. Without it, or with a defective one, a court can dismiss the case before it ever gets to the facts, which makes getting it right the first time critical.
No. Illinois does not currently cap non-economic damages, such as pain, suffering, or loss of normal life, in medical malpractice cases. What a case is actually worth depends on the medical evidence, the extent of the harm, and the financial losses involved.
We handle surgical errors, misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis, medication and anesthesia errors, birth injuries, and malpractice that results in wrongful death, across Chicago and Chicagoland hospitals and clinics. Some of these cases overlap with nursing home negligence when the harm happens in a long-term care setting rather than a hospital.
Yes. When malpractice causes a death, the case becomes a wrongful death claim brought on behalf of the surviving family, and it can include both the financial losses and the loss of companionship the family has suffered, in addition to any damages the patient could have claimed had they survived.
Your initial consultation is free, and if we take your case, we advance the litigation costs, including the cost of retaining medical experts. We only charge a fee if we recover money for you, so there’s no upfront cost to finding out whether you have a case.
Request a complete copy of your medical records, write down what happened while it’s fresh, and avoid discussing the details with hospital staff or their insurer before speaking with a lawyer. The sooner an attorney can start the medical review Illinois law requires, the more time there is to protect your filing deadline.
If a doctor’s error or a hospital’s negligence may have harmed you or someone you love, the medical review Illinois law requires takes time, and the filing deadlines do not wait. Get in touch with our knowledgeable and experienced Chicago medical malpractice attorneys now so we can start protecting your case.
Contact D&W Law Group for a free, no-obligation consultation about your medical malpractice claim.
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