How Medical Malpractice Claims Differ from Other Personal Injury Lawsuits
September 8, 2025
If you’ve been injured in an accident due to someone else’s negligence, you have the right to hold the negligent party accountable for the harm they caused you. This is the foundation of personal injury law.
But what happens when the harm comes from a place you least expect it? What happens when the person you trusted to heal you—a doctor, a nurse, a surgeon—is the one whose actions cause a new or worsened injury?
This is the challenging and often heartbreaking world of medical malpractice. While it is a type of personal injury, a medical malpractice claim is fundamentally different from a lawsuit over a car accident or a slip and fall. The rules are more complex, the standard of proof is higher, and the journey requires a unique kind of legal guidance.
The Foundation: Understanding Negligence
At its core, almost every personal injury case is built on the legal concept of negligence. To win a case, you generally need to prove four things:
- Duty: The other person had a legal responsibility (a “duty of care”) to act in a way that wouldn’t cause you harm.
- Breach: They failed to meet that responsibility (they “breached” their duty).
- Causation: Their failure directly caused your injuries.
- Damages: You suffered real harm, such as medical expenses, lost income, and pain and suffering.
In a typical car accident, this is straightforward. A driver has a duty to obey traffic laws. By texting and running a red light, they breach that duty. The resulting crash causes your injuries (causation), leading to medical bills and time off work (damages). The standard is what a “reasonable person” would have done in the same situation.
In a medical context, however, this framework becomes far more complicated.
Medical Malpractice vs. Personal Injury
While both types of claims are rooted in the concept of negligence, the way that negligence is defined, proven, and argued in a medical malpractice case creates several critical distinctions.
Key Difference #1: The “Standard of Care” is Highly Specialized
The single biggest distinction between medical malpractice and personal injury is the “standard of care.” For a driver or a property owner, the standard is based on what an ordinary, reasonable person would do. But we don’t expect doctors to be merely “reasonable”; we expect them to have a high level of specialized knowledge and skill.
The law reflects this. The medical standard of care is defined as what a reasonably competent and skilled healthcare professional, with a similar background and in the same medical specialty, would have done under the same or similar circumstances.
This means a surgeon is not compared to a “reasonable person” on the street; they are compared to other surgeons. A cardiologist who misreads an EKG is judged against the standards of other cardiologists. It’s not about achieving a perfect outcome—medicine is not an exact science, and bad outcomes can happen even with excellent care. It’s about whether the provider’s actions deviated from the accepted professional standards of their specific field.
Key Difference #2: The Absolute Necessity of Expert Witnesses
Because the standard of care is so specialized, you cannot simply walk into a courtroom and tell a jury that you think your doctor made a mistake. How would a jury of non-doctors know if a surgeon used the wrong suturing technique or if an anesthesiologist administered an improper dosage?
They wouldn’t. That’s why a medical negligence lawsuit hinges on the testimony of expert witnesses.
In these cases, your attorney must find another qualified medical professional—from the same specialty—to review your case. This expert must be willing to testify under oath about several critical points:
- What the appropriate medical standard of care was in your specific situation.
- How your doctor or hospital failed to meet that standard.
- How that specific failure directly caused the injury you now suffer from.
Without a credible medical expert, there is no case. This is very different from a slip and fall case, where eyewitness testimony or a security camera video might be enough to prove negligence. Finding, retaining, and preparing these experts requires significant resources and a deep understanding of both law and medicine.
Key Difference #3: Proving Causation is a More Difficult Puzzle
In many personal injury cases, causation is clear. A car ran a red light and T-boned your vehicle; the crash caused your broken bones. But in a medical malpractice case, the patient was already sick or injured to begin with.
This creates a much more complex challenge. We must prove that your new or worsened condition was caused by the doctor’s negligence, and not by the natural progression of your underlying illness or injury.
For example, if a doctor fails to diagnose cancer in a timely manner, is the patient’s advanced disease a result of the diagnostic error or simply the aggressive nature of the cancer itself? An expert witness is needed to connect the dots and show that, more likely than not, the doctor’s delay in diagnosis led to a worse outcome—such as the loss of a chance for a more effective treatment. This nuance makes causation in medical malpractice cases one of the most heavily fought-over issues.
Key Difference #4: Special Procedural Rules and Requirements
To prevent frivolous lawsuits against healthcare providers, states like Pennsylvania have put special procedural roadblocks in place for medical malpractice claims that don’t exist for other personal injury cases.
One of the most important is the “Certificate of Merit.” In Pennsylvania, within 60 days of filing a medical negligence lawsuit, your attorney must file a formal document signed by an appropriate medical expert. This certificate essentially states that the expert has reviewed your case and believes there is a “reasonable probability” that the care you received fell below the accepted standards and caused your harm.
If you fail to file this certificate on time, your case can be dismissed permanently. This means that long before a lawsuit even gets underway, your legal team must have already conducted a thorough investigation, gathered medical records, and secured a supportive opinion from a qualified expert. This front-loads the work and expense, making these cases far more demanding from the very start.
Wapner Newman for Your Medical Negligence Lawsuit
If you are reading this, you may feel like the trust you placed in a medical professional has been shattered. You deserve a legal team that understands the human side of this struggle as well as the complex legal one.
At Wapner Newman, we understand the profound differences that set medical malpractice claims apart. For over 40 years, our attorneys have been fighting for victims of medical negligence, navigating the intricate requirements, and securing the expert testimony needed to build a strong case. We know what it takes to stand up to hospitals and their powerful insurance companies, and we have a proven record of results that speaks for itself.
You don’t have to decipher the standard of care or find a medical expert on your own. Your focus should be on your health and your family. Let us handle the legal fight. We will listen to your story with compassion, answer your questions with honesty, and guide you through every step of this challenging process.
Your fight is our fight. For a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your situation, please contact Wapner Newman today at (215) 569-0900 or through our online form. Let us help you find the answers and support you need.