All states, including California, limit the time to file a lawsuit for injuries. These deadlines provide certainty for Kaiser Permanente and other healthcare providers that cases will not be filed years after the injuries occurred. These time limits also ensure that memories are fresh and evidence is still available.
However, deadlines can create a hardship for victims of Kaiser Permanente malpractice, especially those with debilitating injuries. Severe injuries can prevent a patient from starting a case within the time required.
Fortunately, a medical malpractice attorney can prepare and file a claim on your behalf. In other words, you can meet the deadline by engaging a lawyer who can file before the statutory limit ends. The lawyer can also assess the value of your claim and present evidence and legal arguments in any proceeding.
Statute of Limitations for Kaiser Permanente Malpractice Claims
Under California law, your deadline for filing a medical malpractice lawsuit is three years after the date of injury or one year after you discovered or reasonably should have discovered your injury, whichever occurs first. In other words, every lawsuit for medical malpractice in California must be filed within one year of the patient having discovered or reasonably should have discovered the injury, but never to exceed three years from the date when the injury occurred.
For example, suppose that a doctor working for Kaiser Permanente committed a surgical error by amputating the wrong foot. In this case, the injury is apparent immediately after the surgery. As a result, the patient will have one year to file a Kaiser Permanente malpractice lawsuit from the date of the incident.
However, in certain circumstances, where the injury was not reasonably known or discoverable for several years, a patient can utilize the three-year statute of limitations to file the claim, provided that the knowledge of the malpractice was discovered less than one year before the date of the filing. In other words, you have three years from the date of the incident IF you could not have reasonably discovered your injury earlier. Hidden injuries, such as exposure to toxins during surgery, might take years before they become apparent. In these cases, the deadline would be three years after the date of injury.
A second exception to the above statute is in cases involving proof of fraud or concealment. This means situations where the doctor or Kaiser Permanente intentionally misled you about your injuries or intentionally concealed the injury or its cause from the patient. For example, a doctor might deceive you into believing that your post-operative pain was normal instead of a consequence of a surgical error. Similarly, this exception would apply where records are altered or destroyed, in order to mislead a patient about the true circumstances of their injury.
Finally, California law gives injured patients one year from the date of discovery of a foreign body that serves no therapeutic or diagnostic purpose, but there is no limitation regarding when the foreign body was left there. Therefore, even if the foreign body was left years or even decades earlier, a patient still has one year from the date of discovery to file the lawsuit, whenever that discovery occurred.
Statute of Limitations for Kaiser Permanente Malpractice Cases for Minors
Under normal circumstances, the statute of limitations is paused until a patient turns eighteen. The statute then starts running on the victim’s eighteenth birthday.
However, the medical malpractice statute of limitations works differently for minors. Minors have three years from the date of the error to file a lawsuit, no matter when the discovery of the error. In other words, minors are not subject to the one-year discovery rule that can shorten the time to one year after discovering the injury.
The time can be even further extended based on the minor’s age. If the minor is under six years of age, the lawsuit must be filed within three years or before their eighth birthday, whichever occurs later.
Thus, a child injured by Kaiser Permanente malpractice has until their eighth birthday if they were injured before they turned five years old. They have three years if they were injured after their fifth birthday but before their sixth birthday.
Once a minor reaches their sixth birthday, they are subject to the same time limit as adult patients. The time limit may be paused for the minor if the parent and insurer defrauded the child or colluded to refrain from bringing the action.
Arbitration Time Limits for Medical Malpractice from a Surgical Error
Under Kaiser Permanente’s member agreement, patients may be required to arbitrate their medical malpractice claims. The deadline for filing for arbitration generally follows California’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice. However, the member agreement changes frequently.
Thus, an injured patient should consider seeking legal assistance promptly after suffering an injury or discovering an injury caused by medical malpractice. A lawyer can analyze the member agreement and determine whether arbitration is required and, if so, when the filing deadline will occur.
Contact The Trial Law Offices of Bradley I. Kramer, M.D., Esq. to Learn the Time Limits for Your Kaiser Permanente Malpractice Claim
California has a short time limit for medical malpractice cases. Moreover, its statute of limitations is complex, with several exceptions that may apply to a surgical error case. Contact us to discuss the claims you can assert and the time limits for bringing them.