Home › Litigation & Disputes › Medical Malpractice
Medical Malpractice
Something went wrong. You want to know why.
Birth injury and shoulder dystocia, anesthesia errors, dental and endodontic malpractice, surgical errors, and missed diagnoses. For patients and families in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.
What We Handle
Medical malpractice cases
Malpractice is not the same thing as a bad outcome. Medicine carries risk, and some results are nobody's fault. A malpractice case asks a narrower question: did the care fall below what a reasonably careful provider would have done, and did that failure cause the harm. Answering it takes records and a qualified medical review, not a hunch.
Birth Injury & Shoulder Dystocia
Shoulder dystocia is when a baby's shoulder catches behind the mother's pubic bone after the head has delivered. The question is how the delivery team saw it coming and what they did next.
Anesthesia Errors
Dosing, airway management, and monitoring. An anesthesiologist's record is timed minute by minute, which is what makes it reviewable afterward.
Dental & Endodontic Malpractice
Nerve injuries, missed disease, implant placement, and root canals filled short of the root tip — the short gutta percha fill.
Surgical Errors
Damage to structures that were not the target of the operation, items left behind, and procedures done on the wrong site.
Failure to Diagnose
A condition that was present, findable, and treatable, and was not caught while there was still time to treat it.
In Plain English
The words nobody explained to you
These are the terms that show up in charts and discharge papers, written out the way a person would say them. This is general information about medical vocabulary, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for talking to a doctor about your own care.
Shoulder dystocia
During a vaginal delivery the head comes out first, and the shoulders follow. Shoulder dystocia is what it is called when one of those shoulders catches behind the mother's pubic bone and the baby stops moving. It is an emergency, and every labor and delivery unit trains for it. There are recognized maneuvers for freeing the shoulder, and there are known risk factors that are supposed to be on the chart before delivery ever starts.
The injury families ask about most often comes from traction — pulling on the baby's head and neck to get the shoulder loose. Too much of it can stretch or tear the brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves running from the neck into the arm. Sometimes that heals. Sometimes the arm never works the same way again.
Shoulder dystocia by itself does not mean anyone was careless. It happens in deliveries that were handled well. What a case turns on is the record: what was known about the risk beforehand, which maneuvers were used and in what order, how long it took, and how the delivery was described in the notes written afterward.
Anesthesia errors and what the anesthesiologist was watching
Most people never meet their anesthesiologist for more than a few minutes, and remember almost nothing after that. So when a patient wakes up harmed, or does not wake up the way they should, the family has no idea what happened in the room.
The record does. Anesthesia is one of the most heavily documented parts of medicine. The anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist keeps a chart with vital signs entered at short, regular intervals for the entire case, plus every drug, dose, and time. Read side by side with the surgical notes and the recovery room record, it is a minute-by-minute account.
The failures that show up there are usually one of a handful: a dose that did not match the patient, a history or allergy that was in the file and not accounted for, trouble getting or keeping an airway, oxygen levels that dropped and stayed down, or numbers that changed on the monitor and were not acted on quickly. You are not expected to find any of that yourself. Someone qualified reads it and says whether it met the standard.
Dental malpractice, and what a short gutta percha fill means
Dental malpractice covers the same ground as any other medical malpractice: nerve injuries from extractions or injections, implants placed into the wrong space, disease that was visible on films and never mentioned, and treatment that went on long after it stopped working.
Root canals have their own vocabulary. When the nerve and pulp are taken out of a tooth, the empty canal has to be sealed. The material used for that is gutta percha, a rubbery filler packed down the length of the canal. It is supposed to reach close to the apex — the tip of the root, where the canal opens into the jaw. A short gutta percha fill means it stopped well before that and left empty space behind.
Empty space in a root canal is where bacteria live. The tooth can stay infected, or go quiet for months and then flare, and the result can be an abscess, a retreatment, or losing the tooth entirely. It is visible on an x-ray, which is why patients often learn about it years later from a different dentist looking at an old film.
A short fill is not automatically malpractice. Canals curve, narrow, and calcify, and a careful dentist working properly can still come up short of the apex. The questions that matter are whether the technique met the standard of care, whether the problem was recognized on the post-treatment film, and whether the patient was told.
$50
30-minute consultation
3 states
Connecticut, New York & Massachusetts
What Happens Next
What the process looks like
Medical malpractice cases move differently from other injury cases. They are slower at the start, because the records and the medical review come before anything gets filed. Here is the order it happens in.
01
The first conversation
Thirty minutes, $50. You describe what happened and when. You leave knowing whether this is worth pulling records over and what the next step would be.
02
The records
The complete chart, not the summary: hospital records, the anesthesia record, delivery notes, operative reports, imaging, dental films. You can request your own, or the firm can request them for you.
03
The medical review
A qualified provider in the same field reads the chart and gives an opinion on whether the care met the standard. This happens before a case is filed, not after.
04
The extra step these cases require
Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts each add a requirement ordinary lawsuits do not have — a written opinion from a qualified health care provider, a certificate of merit, or review by a medical tribunal. The details differ by state.
05
Filing and discovery
The complaint is filed, the providers answer, and both sides exchange documents, written questions, sworn testimony, and expert reports. This is the long part.
06
Resolution
Some cases settle. Some are tried. And some, once the records are read, should not be brought at all — if that is what the review says, you will be told so directly.
On deadlines
The filing deadlines in medical malpractice cases are strict, and they are not the same in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. They can be shorter than the deadlines in ordinary injury cases, and facts like the age of the patient or when the injury was discovered can change them. If you think you may be close to a date, say that when you call so it gets looked at first.
Common Questions
Medical malpractice FAQ
What is shoulder dystocia, and does it always mean something was done wrong?
Shoulder dystocia happens during delivery when the baby's head has come out but a shoulder is caught behind the mother's pubic bone. It is an obstetric emergency, and on its own it is not proof that anyone was careless. It happens in deliveries that are handled well. What matters is what came before and after: whether known risk factors were recognized, which maneuvers the delivery team used to free the shoulder, how much traction was applied to the baby's head and neck, and what the chart records about all of it. Excessive traction can stretch or tear the brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves that controls the arm, and that injury can be permanent. A qualified obstetric reviewer reads the delivery record and gives an opinion on whether the response met the standard of care.
How would I know whether an anesthesia error happened?
Usually you would not know on your own, and that is normal. Anesthesia care is documented in unusual detail. The anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist keeps a record with vital signs entered at short intervals, along with the drugs given, the doses, and the times. That record is what a reviewer reads. The problems that turn up in it include dosing errors, not accounting for a patient's history or allergies, difficulty managing the airway, oxygen levels that fall and are not corrected quickly, and a delay in responding when the numbers change. You do not need to spot any of that yourself. You need the record, and someone qualified to read it.
What is a short gutta percha fill, and is it dental malpractice?
Gutta percha is the rubbery material a dentist or endodontist packs into a root canal after the nerve and pulp are removed. It is meant to fill the canal down to near the apex, which is the tip of the root. A short gutta percha fill means the material stops well before the apex and leaves empty space behind. Bacteria can survive in that space, so the tooth can stay infected or become reinfected, which sometimes leads to an abscess, a retreatment, or losing the tooth. A short fill is visible on a dental x-ray. It is not automatically malpractice. Some canals are curved, narrow, or calcified, and a careful dentist can still come up short. The question a reviewer answers is whether the treatment and the follow-up met the standard of care, and whether the patient was told what happened.
Is a bad outcome the same as malpractice?
No. Medicine carries real risk, and a serious complication can happen when every provider did their job properly. Malpractice means two things at once: the care fell below what a reasonably careful provider in the same field would have done, and that failure caused the harm. Both halves have to be there. That is why these cases begin with records and a medical review rather than with a filing.
How long do I have to bring a medical malpractice case?
Less time than most people expect, and the answer is different in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. The deadlines are strict, they can be shorter than the deadlines in ordinary injury cases, and specific facts, such as the age of the patient or when the injury was discovered, can move them. Do not assume you have time. If you think you may be close to a date, say so when you call so it can be looked at first.
Do I need my medical records before I call?
No. Bring what you have, even if that is nothing. Records can be requested later. What helps most in a first conversation is a timeline: the dates, the names of the providers and facilities, and what you were told at each point.
Turley Law mostly serves businesses. Why medical malpractice?
Because it is work Blake takes and knows. Most of this site is written for companies. This part of the practice is not. If you are here because of something that happened to you or to your child, the way in is the same as everywhere else on the site: a thirty-minute consultation for $50.
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, $50. Tell me what happened and when, and you will leave knowing whether it is worth pulling the records.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This page is general information, not legal or medical advice.