Kansas City Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Medical malpractice can take many forms, but all of them can have traumatic, lifelong consequences. Malpractice is when a doctor or other medical professional fails to act properly and makes a mistake that should not have been made. Proving this can be quite difficult, but doing so is vital to receiving proper treatment and making sure the doctor responsible pays for your pain and suffering.

At Norton & Spencer, P.C., our medical negligence attorneys will discuss your situation, talk about your options and make sure you are on the right path for medical and financial recovery. Our firm is widely known in the Kansas City region and throughout Missouri in the field of medical malpractice litigation. As reputable Kansas City medical malpractice lawyers, we can help you secure the results you need.

Kansas City Medical Malpractice Lawyers With Proven Trial Experience 

Many firms advertise medical malpractice work. Fewer prepare and try those cases themselves. Our attorneys are the trial attorneys on these files from the first records request through closing argument, and we keep that work in-house rather than referring it out. That is why other Missouri firms send us the medical negligence claims they are not equipped to try. Here is the experience behind that work: 

• A trial practice dating to 1952: Three generations of trial attorneys have represented injured patients in Kansas City and across Missouri under this firm’s name.
• More than 150 jury trials: Attorney Jack Norton has tried over 150 jury cases, including 10 verdicts above $1 million.
• Two decades of malpractice focus: Attorney Katie Spencer has practiced for more than 20 years, concentrating on medical negligence and birth injury claims.
• The same attorneys start to finish: The attorney who reviews your records is the attorney who tries the case, not someone the file gets handed to later.

That structure matters most in the cases that take years and heavy legal work, which is where medical malpractice claims usually land.

Handling All Varieties Of Serious Medical Malpractice

Our trial attorneys are ready to take their experience in some of Missouri’s highest-stakes and precedent-setting cases and apply it to your claim. No two of these cases turn on the same evidence: A surgical claim lives in the operative report, a diagnostic claim lives in a chart from months earlier and a birth injury claim lives in the fetal monitoring strips. We handle every type of medical malpractice, including: 

• Cancer misdiagnosis: A tumor read as benign or a symptom attributed to something minor can cost a patient the window when treatment would have worked. Our attorneys build these claims around what the imaging and pathology showed at the time.
• Failure to diagnose: Infections, cardiac events and neurological conditions are missed when a workup stops short. The patient goes home and gets worse while a treatable condition goes unrecognized.
• Surgical errors: Damage to surrounding structures, retained hardware and complications from procedures such as discectomies fall under this heading. Most of these claims begin with a review of the operative report.
• Wrong site surgery: A surgeon operates on the wrong limb, the wrong disc level or the wrong side entirely. These cases usually trace back to a breakdown in the pre-op verification process.
• Surgical “never events”: Sponges, needles and instruments left inside a patient turn up weeks or years later. The medical profession classifies these as mistakes that should never occur, which shapes how the claim is proven.
• Unnecessary surgery: A patient undergoes a procedure that was never medically indicated and absorbs all of its risks for no benefit. These claims often surface when a second physician reviews the chart.
• Eye surgery: Cataract, LASIK and retinal procedures leave patients with blurred vision, chronic pain or permanent loss of sight. Our attorneys measure the complication against the standard of care the surgeon owed.
• Nerve damage and paralysis: Procedural mistakes and untreated bleeds permanently affect movement, sensation or speech. A claim like this generally requires life care planning alongside the liability analysis.
• Medical errors involving amputation: Preventable infections and surgical injuries cost a patient a limb or leave permanent scarring. The question is usually whether timely treatment would have saved it.
• Medication errors: A pharmacy or provider dispenses the wrong drug, a nurse administers the wrong dose or an implant is placed improperly. Our attorneys trace the error back through the prescribing and dispensing chain.

Proving medical malpractice in a civil personal injury lawsuit is difficult. To establish negligence on the part of the medical professional, you must prove that another doctor, acting reasonably, would not have made the same mistake. Our medical malpractice lawyers know what it takes to prove these claims. We gather medical journals or research, information on prescription drugs and tests as well as testimony from other doctors regarding how a procedure should be handled. We walk you through every step of your case and take it as far as the evidence supports.

Birth Injury Claims In Kansas City And Throughout Missouri 

A birth injury is not the same as a birth defect. A defect develops before labor, often genetically. An injury is harm caused during pregnancy, labor or delivery, frequently by a decision made too slowly or a warning sign nobody acted on. Parents are often told only that the delivery was difficult, and they learn much later that the fetal heart tracing had shown distress for an hour before anyone responded.

These are the birth injury claims our attorneys investigate most often:

• Oxygen deprivation and HIE: Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is brain damage caused by a loss of oxygen around the time of birth. Cooling therapy has a narrow treatment window, so a delayed response to fetal distress can change a child’s entire future.
• Cerebral palsy: A disorder of movement and posture that can follow oxygen deprivation or an untreated infection during labor. You can read more about how cerebral palsy develops during delivery.
• Erb’s palsy and brachial plexus injuries: Nerve damage to the shoulder and arm, often linked to excessive traction when a baby’s shoulder becomes stuck during delivery.
• Delivery trauma and fractures: Skull and collarbone fractures, bleeding under the scalp and injuries associated with forceps or vacuum extraction.
• Delayed cesarean delivery: Records that show a surgical delivery was indicated well before it was performed.

The financial picture in these cases is unlike any other area of medical negligence. A child with cerebral palsy may need therapy, equipment, home modifications and attendant care for decades, so the claim has to be built with life care planners and economists alongside the medical review. Our attorneys request the complete labor and delivery record, including the monitoring strips, as early as possible, because that is where the timeline either holds up or falls apart. If your child’s diagnosis does not match the delivery you remember, that is worth asking an attorney about.

Surgical And Anesthesia Errors In Missouri Operating Rooms 

Operating rooms run on verification steps and checklists. When those steps get skipped, the injury is usually obvious in hindsight. Our attorneys handle wrong-site and wrong-procedure surgeries, injuries to nerves, bowels or blood vessels during routine operations, and complications from spine procedures such as discectomies.

Anesthesia claims turn on monitoring and history. A documented allergy or prior reaction may never have been reviewed before induction, and dosing mistakes or inadequate recovery-room observation can cause brain injury within minutes. We obtain the anesthesia record, the monitoring data and the timing of every drug administered.

Hospital And Nursing Home Negligence Claims 

Hospitals are responsible for the systems they run, not just for individual providers. Understaffed floors, failure to escalate a deteriorating patient and emergency department delays cause real harm, particularly where a stroke, heart attack or sepsis went unrecognized during triage.

The same pattern shows up in long-term care. Pressure ulcers, repeated falls, dehydration and unexplained bruising usually trace back to staffing levels and skipped assessments rather than an unavoidable decline. Our attorneys handle neglect and abuse in long-term care facilities across the Kansas City area and the rest of Missouri.

What Are Never Events In A Hospital Setting? 

Some errors are considered so preventable that the healthcare industry classifies them as events that should never occur under any circumstances. Operating on the wrong body part, operating on the wrong patient, performing the wrong procedure and leaving an instrument inside a patient all fall into this category, as do certain medication errors and falls that cause serious injury.

These claims carry weight because the error is hard to defend as a judgment call. The safeguards meant to prevent it are written into hospital policy, and the records show whether anyone followed them. Our attorneys cover this category in more depth on our page about surgical never events and hospital safety failures.

Missouri’s Cap On Recovery Amounts

It is important to note that in Missouri there are caps on medical malpractice cases, including the noneconomic damage cap. If you have been injured, it is important to act decisively to begin building a case, so we encourage you to reach out as soon as possible. It can also be helpful to realize that many doctors have been sued multiple times, but juries cannot be made aware of this information in court. We are here to do everything we can to work toward serious accountability.

If You Have Questions, We Have The Answers

Medical malpractice law is immensely complex. We understand that you probably have a lot of questions about your options and your rights when it comes to your case. Below, you can read a few frequently asked questions that our medical negligence lawyers have taken the time to answer.

Is there a statute of limitations on claims?

In Missouri, you have up to two years from the date of the medical negligence incident to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. In some instances – such as a utensil left in your body – the statute of limitations begins from the date that you discover the wrongdoing. If you do not file before the deadline, you give up your right to recover compensation for your damages.

What if the malpractice occurred when I was a child?

Fortunately, the state has exceptions for child victims. If you were a minor when you suffered medical malpractice, you have until your 20^th birthday to file a malpractice claim.

What damages can I recover?

Medical errors and other forms of negligence often have severe – and expensive – damages. A few of the most common damages in Missouri medical malpractice cases include:

• Corrective surgery
• Physical rehabilitation
• Prescription medications
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of earning potential
• Loss of income

Our team is committed to recovering maximum compensation for your damages. We do not accept the first settlement. We conduct our research thoroughly to build a strong claim and put as much money in your hands as we can.

These brief answers are probably not the only ones you need. Please feel welcome to reach out to us for more information about medical malpractice.

Contact A Malpractice Attorney Today For A Free Consultation

To discuss any aspect of medical negligence in a free initial consultation with one of our Kansas City medical malpractice lawyers, call 866-251-5423. You may also contact us online to ask a question or to schedule a consultation in our office or at your location.