Trusted Legal Representation for Medical Malpractice Claims in Austin
Written by: Hastings Law Firm | Reviewed by: Tommy Hastings | Updated: May 11, 2026
What You Should Know About Healthcare Negligence Lawsuits in Austin:
- You can file a malpractice claim against any Austin area healthcare facility, including freestanding ERs, surgical centers, and urgent care clinics.
- A hospital can be held liable for your injury even if the doctor who treated you was not a hospital employee.
- If you were treated by a resident or fellow at a teaching hospital like Dell Seton, liability may extend to the supervising physician, the training program, or the institution itself.
- Signing a consent form before a procedure does not prevent you from filing a malpractice claim if the injury resulted from negligent care rather than a known risk.
- You generally have two years from the date of injury or discovery to file a claim in Texas, but an absolute 10-year cutoff applies regardless of when you learned about the harm.
- Your attorney must serve a qualified expert report within 120 days of each defendant’s answer, and missing that deadline can result in your case being permanently dismissed.
- Non-economic damages like pain and suffering are capped in Texas, but there is no cap on economic damages for medical bills, lost income, rehabilitation, and future care needs.
- Your first consultation with Hastings Law Firm is free, and you pay no attorney fees or costs unless we recover compensation on your behalf.
A Medical Injury Focused Law Firm
When something goes wrong during medical treatment, patients and families are often left without clear answers. Providers may attribute the outcome to an inherent risk. Medical records may be difficult to interpret. And the people responsible for the error are rarely the ones explaining what happened.
Hastings Law Firm represents patients and families in Austin and across Central Texas who have been harmed by preventable medical errors. Our team of attorneys, in-house nurse consultants, and patient advocates focuses exclusively on medical malpractice. Since 2005, that singular focus has shaped how we investigate cases, prepare for trial, and hold negligent providers and institutions accountable.
If you believe you or a loved one was injured by substandard medical care in the Austin area, we can review what happened and explain your legal options at no cost.
How Medical Malpractice Is Defined Under Texas Law
A medical malpractice claim starts with a simple question: did the provider’s care fall below the accepted standard of care, and did that failure cause the patient’s injury? The standard of care is the level of treatment a reasonably competent provider in the same specialty would deliver under similar circumstances. When care drops below that threshold and harm follows, the provider may be liable for negligence.
Bad outcomes happen in medicine. Not all of them are preventable, and not all of them involve error. The legal distinction turns on whether a qualified provider, exercising reasonable judgment, would have made different decisions. If the answer is yes, and those different decisions would have prevented the injury, the case may support a malpractice claim.
Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code governs how these claims are filed and litigated. It imposes strict procedural requirements, including the early submission of a qualified expert report, that must be met for a case to proceed.
To establish a valid claim, an Austin medical malpractice attorney must prove four elements:
- Duty: A provider-patient relationship existed, creating an obligation to deliver competent care.
- Breach: The provider’s actions or omissions fell below the accepted standard of care. In diagnostic cases, this can involve anchoring bias, where a physician fixates on an initial diagnosis and fails to reconsider as new information becomes available.
- Causation: The breach directly caused the patient’s injury or allowed a condition to worsen beyond the point where effective treatment was still possible.
- Damages: The patient suffered real, documentable harm, whether physical, financial, or emotional.
Our legal team includes former defense attorneys who previously represented hospitals and in-house nurses who worked inside the systems we now challenge. That background gives us a clear understanding of how providers document care, how hospitals respond to claims, and where the evidence of a breach is most likely to be found.
When a Complication May Actually Be Negligence
Every case we evaluate starts with determining whether the harm was avoidable. Certain patterns suggest negligence rather than an inherent risk of treatment:
- A serious safety event occurred that proper protocols should have prevented, such as a surgery on the wrong body part or a retained surgical instrument
- A sentinel event resulting in death or severe harm was not reported or investigated by the facility
- Diagnostic results available in the chart were not reviewed or acted on in a clinically appropriate timeframe
- A patient was not informed of material risks before a procedure, raising questions about whether valid informed consent was obtained
- Institutional factors like inadequate staffing, faulty equipment, or breakdowns in communication between providers contributed to the injury
Hospital risk management teams and insurers frequently characterize preventable injuries as known complications. That response doesn’t mean your case lacks merit. It means you need a team with the clinical depth to reconstruct the timeline and evaluate what the evidence actually shows.
Major Hospitals and Medical Facilities in Austin
Austin’s healthcare infrastructure has expanded significantly as the region’s population has grown, and that growth has brought both increased capacity and increased complexity. Two major health systems anchor the market, supported by a growing network of specialty hospitals, surgical centers, and outpatient clinics.
Ascension Seton operates several hospitals across the Austin metro. Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas is a 211-bed academic hospital in downtown Austin and the only adult Level I Trauma Center in the 11-county Central Texas region. It serves as the primary teaching hospital for Dell Medical School at UT Austin, meaning many patients receive care from residents and fellows training under attending physician supervision. The emergency department sees over 70,000 visits per year, and the hospital is currently undergoing a $280 million expansion to add 150 beds and additional surgical, ICU, and outpatient capacity. Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, a separate 534-bed facility, is the largest medical/surgical acute care hospital in Central Texas and the only hospital in the region performing heart transplants.
Dell Children’s Medical Center, also part of the Ascension system, is Central Texas’s only dedicated pediatric hospital. With 262 beds and the region’s only Level I Pediatric Trauma Center, it serves a 46-county area. The hospital is affiliated with Dell Medical School and includes the only comprehensive children’s heart center in Central Texas. A newer satellite campus, Dell Children’s North, opened in Williamson County with 36 beds and recently achieved Level III Trauma Center designation.
St. David’s HealthCare, a partnership between HCA Healthcare and two local nonprofits, operates seven hospitals with more than 1,500 beds across the region. St. David’s Medical Center in central Austin is a 371-bed facility with the region’s largest Level IV NICU and a Level IV maternity unit. St. David’s North Austin Medical Center houses St. David’s Women’s Center of Texas, St. David’s Children’s Hospital, and the Heart and Vascular Center on a single campus. St. David’s South Austin Medical Center is a 252-bed hospital with a nationally recognized cardiac program. St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center is a 209-bed Level II Trauma Center serving Williamson County, and St. David’s Georgetown Hospital extends the system’s reach further north.
Beyond these major systems, Austin-area patients receive care at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Round Rock, Cedar Park Regional Medical Center, and a growing number of freestanding emergency rooms, ambulatory surgical centers, and specialty clinics spread across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties.
Malpractice claims can arise at any of these facilities. The legal obligation to meet the accepted standard of care applies to teaching hospitals, community hospitals, surgical centers, freestanding ERs, and outpatient clinics equally. When that standard is not met and a patient is harmed, the provider, the facility, or both can be held accountable under Texas law.
Our Medical Lawyers Hold Austin Hospitals and Medical Professionals Accountable
Determining who is legally responsible for a medical injury is one of the first questions we answer in every case. Liability doesn’t always rest with a single physician. Depending on the circumstances, it can extend to nurses, anesthesiologists, consulting specialists, and the hospital or facility itself.
When a physician in private practice commits an error, that individual provider is typically the defendant. Hospital cases work differently. Under the legal doctrine of vicarious liability, a hospital can be held responsible for the negligent actions of its employees. If a nurse on staff at St. David’s or a surgical tech employed by Dell Seton makes an error during the course of their duties, the institution may share liability for the resulting harm.
Institutional negligence reaches further. Inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios, poorly maintained equipment, lax credentialing of physicians, and failures in safety protocols can all create conditions where preventable injuries become more likely. These are not mistakes by a single provider. They reflect organizational decisions that the hospital made or failed to make.
The Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Columbia Medical Center/HCA is directly relevant here. Under that ruling, a hospital can face direct liability for failing to implement adequate systems or policies, even when the treating physician is an independent contractor rather than an employee. This matters in Austin because many physicians who practice at hospitals across the metro, including emergency physicians, hospitalists, anesthesiologists, and radiologists, are independent contractors. Patients are rarely told about these arrangements. If the hospital’s own institutional failures contributed to the injury, the facility may be liable regardless of the treating doctor’s employment status.
A retained surgical item left inside a patient after surgery is one example of an error that may implicate both the surgical team and the hospital’s safety protocols. These incidents are classified as never events, meaning preventable errors that should not occur when proper procedures are followed.
We identify every responsible party in every case we evaluate, whether that is the treating physician, a consulting specialist, or the institution itself.
Recovering Damages for Medical Injuries in Texas
Compensation in a Texas medical malpractice case is divided into two main categories, and the state treats them very differently.
Economic damages cover quantifiable financial losses and have no cap under Texas law. These include past and future medical expenses, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, rehabilitation costs, in-home care needs, and necessary medical equipment or home modifications.
Non-economic damages compensate for pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, physical impairment, and loss of companionship. These damages are capped by statute: $250,000 against all individual physicians and providers combined, with a separate $250,000 cap per healthcare institution (up to $500,000 for two or more institutions). The aggregate maximum when both providers and multiple institutions are involved is $750,000.
Punitive damages are available in rare cases involving gross negligence or willful misconduct, subject to separate statutory limits.
These caps were enacted as part of Texas Tort Reform in 2003. A jury may award any amount it considers fair, but the judge will reduce the non-economic portion to the statutory ceiling. Because one entire category of damages is limited by law, our approach to every case prioritizes thorough documentation of economic losses. Future medical costs, lost earning capacity, and projected care needs often represent the largest component of a recovery, and building that record accurately from the start is how we work to ensure the caps do not define the outcome.
In wrongful death cases, surviving family members, including a spouse, children, or parents, may each bring claims for their own losses. These include both economic components like loss of financial support and funeral expenses, and non-economic components like loss of companionship and mental anguish.
| Damage Type | What It Covers | Cap in Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Economic Damages | Past and future medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, rehabilitation costs, home care needs | No cap |
| Non-Economic Damages | Pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, loss of companionship | $250,000 against all physicians/providers combined; $250,000 per healthcare institution (up to $500,000 for two or more institutions); aggregate maximum of $750,000 when both providers and multiple institutions are involved |
| Punitive Damages | Awarded in rare cases involving gross negligence or malice | Subject to separate statutory limits |
Proving a Medical Negligence Claim in Texas
Texas law places a high evidentiary bar on medical malpractice claims. Clinical evidence and qualified expert testimony are required to move forward, regardless of how obvious the harm may seem to the patient.
The process of building a case follows a structured path:
- Medical records collection: We secure the complete record from every facility and provider involved in the patient’s care, including physician notes, nursing charts, imaging studies, lab results, and monitoring data such as electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) strips.
- In-house medical analysis: Our nurse consultants and Board Certified Patient Advocates review the records for deviations from accepted protocols, charting inconsistencies, and medication errors, including contraindications where a drug should not have been prescribed given the patient’s other conditions or treatments.
- Expert evaluation: We engage qualified medical experts in the relevant specialty to assess whether the provider’s actions fell below the standard of care and whether that breach caused the injury.
- Timeline reconstruction: Our team builds a detailed, chronological account of the clinical events to identify the specific points where different decisions could have changed the outcome.
This combined approach, pairing legal strategy with clinical analysis, is what separates our preparation from firms that handle malpractice as one of many practice areas.
The Expert Report Requirement Under Chapter 74
Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 74.351, a patient must serve a qualified expert report on each defendant within 120 days of that defendant filing an original answer. The report must identify the applicable standard of care, explain how the defendant breached it, and establish the causal connection between the breach and the injury.
This is not optional. Failure to serve the report within the statutory window results in dismissal of the case, and in most situations that dismissal is with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. The requirement makes early investigation and expert coordination essential from the moment a case is accepted.
Our national network of medical experts allows us to move quickly on these reports, and our former defense attorneys know exactly what the opposing side will challenge.
“Cases aren’t won by the lawyer with the fanciest tie, but by the lawyer who works the hardest and cares the most.”
– Tommy Hastings, founding attorneyAn Austin Medical Law Firm That Gets Results
Hastings Law Firm was founded in 2005 by Tommy Hastings, a board certified personal injury attorney who has spent his entire career representing patients and families harmed by medical negligence. He is one of the only attorneys in Texas who still handles medical malpractice cases exclusively, and that focus shapes every part of how this firm operates.
The preparation and intensity we bring to every case has earned us a reputation that defense attorneys and insurance carriers recognize. Medical malpractice is all we do, and that matters when you’re going up against hospitals, insurance carriers, and defense teams with unlimited resources.
Experienced & Dedicated Medical Injury Lawyers Near You
Patients and families across the Austin area trust Hastings Law Firm because we combine deep medical knowledge with aggressive litigation strategy. Tommy has obtained millions of dollars in compensation for his clients, and the attorneys and medical professionals on our team bring that same standard to every case we take on.
Where Austin Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Are Filed
Where your case is filed depends on where the treatment took place. Medical malpractice cases arising from care in Travis County are filed in the Travis County Civil District Courts, located at the Civil and Family Court Facility at 1700 Guadalupe Street in Austin. Travis County has multiple civil district courts with jurisdiction over these claims, and all attorney filings must be submitted electronically.
Patients treated at facilities in Williamson County, including Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, and Leander, file at the Williamson County Courthouse in Georgetown. Cases originating in Hays County, covering Kyle, Buda, San Marcos, and surrounding communities, are filed at the Hays County Courthouse in San Marcos.
Appeals from all three counties are heard by the Third Court of Appeals of Texas, which sits in Austin and has jurisdiction over 24 Central Texas counties.
Our attorneys file and appear in courts across all of these jurisdictions. That familiarity with local rules, scheduling practices, and procedural expectations in each county directly affects how we prepare cases and manage timelines.
Pursuing Medical Malpractice Litigation in Austin
Bringing a malpractice claim in the Austin area follows a structured process, and each phase builds on the work completed before it.
We begin by obtaining your complete medical records from the treating facility, whether that is Dell Seton, St. David’s Medical Center, St. David’s North Austin, Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, Dell Children’s, or any other provider in the region. Our medical team reviews those records to reconstruct the timeline of your care and identify where the standard may have been violated.
Once we’ve identified a potential breach, we coordinate with qualified medical experts to prepare the expert report required under Chapter 74. Travis County and Williamson County courts both enforce the 120-day deadline, and we begin expert coordination as soon as a case is accepted to ensure that deadline is met.
After the expert report is served, the case enters discovery. Both sides exchange evidence, take depositions of treating physicians and retained experts, and develop their positions on liability and damages. Mediation or settlement negotiations often take place during this phase.
Many malpractice cases resolve before trial. But fair settlement offers only come when the defense recognizes that the plaintiff’s team is prepared to present the case to a jury. We build every case with that standard, so that whether resolution comes through negotiation or in a Central Texas courtroom, our clients are positioned for the best possible outcome.
The Statute of Limitations for Medical Malpractice in Texas
Texas law requires medical malpractice lawsuits to be filed within two years of the date the injury occurred or the date it was discovered. Once that window closes, the right to bring a claim is almost always lost. The rules are outlined in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 74.251.
The two-year clock typically begins on the date the negligent act occurred. But three exceptions can shift that starting point:
- Discovery rule: When an injury is not immediately apparent, the limitation period may begin on the date the patient discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the harm. A surgical device left inside a patient that doesn’t produce symptoms for months is a common example.
- Minors: Children under the age of 12 have until their 14th birthday to have a claim filed on their behalf.
- Statute of repose: Texas imposes an absolute 10-year outer boundary. No malpractice claim can be filed more than 10 years after the date the negligent act occurred, regardless of when the injury was discovered. Exceptions to this cutoff are extremely limited.
If you’re unsure whether your filing deadline has passed, consulting with an Austin medical malpractice lawyer is the safest step you can take.
You Need an Experienced Medical Injury Lawyer in Austin
Medical malpractice cases are among the most complex claims in civil litigation. They require clinical knowledge, access to qualified experts, and the resources to take on well-funded hospital defense teams. General practice personal injury firms typically lack the depth of medical understanding and the case infrastructure these claims demand.
Here is what sets our Austin medical malpractice lawyer team apart:
- Trial-ready from day one: Every case is investigated and prepared as if it will go to a jury trial. That level of preparation sends a clear signal to insurance carriers and defense counsel that we will not accept an inadequate settlement. It also positions us to pursue a verdict when a fair resolution cannot be reached through negotiation.
- Exclusive focus on medical malpractice: We do not handle car accidents, slip-and-falls, or general personal injury. Our entire team, attorneys, nurse consultants, and patient advocates, works only on medical negligence cases. That concentration gives us a depth of knowledge and case infrastructure that general practice firms cannot match.
- Former defense insight: Members of our team previously represented hospitals and their insurers. That experience gives us a firsthand understanding of how defense counsel evaluates claims, prepares challenges, and advises clients on settlement. We use that knowledge to build cases designed to withstand those strategies.
- In-house medical professionals: Our staff includes nurse practitioners and Board Certified Patient Advocates who analyze medical records, identify charting inconsistencies, and translate complex clinical data into evidence a jury can understand. In birth injury cases, this includes detailed review of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) strips and labor and delivery timelines.
- We understand the hesitation: Many clients tell us they felt uncomfortable questioning their doctor or the hospital. That hesitation is common, and it’s understandable. We help you move past it by giving you the information and support you need to pursue accountability with confidence.
We work on a contingency fee basis. You pay no attorney fees or costs unless we recover compensation on your behalf.
Austin and Central Texas Communities We Represent
We represent patients and families across Austin and the broader Central Texas region. Our clients come from communities throughout the metro, including Downtown Austin, South Austin, North Austin, East Austin, West Lake Hills, Bee Cave, Lakeway, Dripping Springs, Pflugerville, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Leander, Liberty Hill, Kyle, Buda, San Marcos, and New Braunfels.
Cases arising in Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties all follow the same appellate path through the Third Court of Appeals in Austin. Patients treated at facilities in any of these counties have access to the same legal remedies under Texas medical liability law.
No matter where in Central Texas the injury occurred, our team handles the full process from investigation through resolution.
Talk to an Austin Healthcare Malpractice Attorney About Your Case
If you or someone in your family was harmed by a healthcare provider or facility in Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, or anywhere in Central Texas, we can help you understand what happened and whether you have a legal claim. Your first conversation with our team is free, confidential, and carries no obligation. We’ll review the details of your situation, explain your options, and give you an honest assessment of whether your case has merit. If we take your case, you pay no attorney fees or costs unless we recover compensation on your behalf. Call or use the contact form on this page to schedule your free case review.
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Austin Medical Injury Claim Questions
Key Medical Malpractice Terms:
- Standard of care
- The level of skill and treatment that a reasonably competent healthcare provider in the same medical specialty would deliver under similar circumstances. In a Texas malpractice case, the patient must prove that the provider’s care fell below this benchmark and that the failure directly caused the injury.
- Anchoring bias
- A cognitive error in clinical decision-making where a physician fixates on an early diagnosis and fails to reconsider as new symptoms, test results, or clinical findings emerge. When anchoring bias leads to a missed or delayed diagnosis that causes harm, it can establish that the provider breached the accepted standard of care.
- Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM)
- A technology used during labor to continuously track the fetal heart rate and the timing of uterine contractions. Timely interpretation of EFM data and appropriate clinical response to signs of fetal distress are essential components of the obstetric standard of care. Failures in monitoring or delayed response to warning patterns can form the basis of birth injury malpractice claims.
- Never event
- A category of serious medical error that established safety protocols are specifically designed to prevent, such as surgery performed on the wrong body part or a surgical instrument left inside a patient. The occurrence of a never event is widely considered strong evidence that the standard of care was not met.
- Sentinel event
- An unexpected occurrence during medical care that results in death, serious injury, or significant risk of either. Hospitals are expected to investigate sentinel events to identify systemic breakdowns, and the findings from those investigations can serve as evidence of negligence in a malpractice claim.
- Retained surgical item
- A sponge, instrument, needle, or other object unintentionally left inside a patient’s body following a surgical procedure. Classified as a never event, a retained surgical item can cause infection, chronic pain, organ damage, and the need for additional surgery, and it represents a clear failure of established surgical safety protocols.
- Vicarious liability
- A legal doctrine that holds an employer responsible for the negligent actions of its employees performed within the scope of their duties. In medical malpractice cases, this principle allows a hospital to be held liable for errors made by nurses, technicians, and other staff members employed by the facility.
- Institutional negligence
- A legal theory under which a hospital or healthcare facility bears direct liability for its own organizational failures, such as inadequate staffing, poor credentialing of physicians, faulty equipment maintenance, or missing safety protocols. Unlike vicarious liability, institutional negligence holds the facility accountable for systemic decisions rather than the actions of a single employee.
- Informed consent
- The legal requirement that a healthcare provider disclose the material risks, benefits, and alternatives of a proposed treatment or procedure before the patient agrees to it. If a provider fails to communicate known risks and the patient is harmed by one of those undisclosed risks, the inadequacy of the consent process itself may support a malpractice claim.
- Contraindication
- A condition, factor, or circumstance that makes a particular medication or treatment inadvisable for a specific patient because it may cause harm. Prescribing or administering a drug despite a known contraindication, such as an allergy or a dangerous interaction with another medication, can constitute a breach of the standard of care.
- Statute of repose
- An absolute legal deadline that bars a malpractice claim from being filed after a fixed period following the date of the negligent act, regardless of when the injury was discovered. In Texas, the statute of repose for medical malpractice is 10 years, and exceptions to this cutoff are extremely limited.
- Contingency fee
- A fee arrangement in which an attorney’s compensation is a percentage of the recovery obtained on the client’s behalf, with no upfront payment required. If no recovery is made, the client owes no attorney fees. This structure allows patients and families to pursue medical malpractice claims without taking on financial risk.
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 74 | Texas Legislature Online
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 74.251, Statute of Limitations | Texas Legislature Online
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 74.351, Expert Report | Texas Legislature Online
- Travis County Civil District Courts | Travis County, Texas
- Third Court of Appeals | Texas Judicial Branch
- Dell Children’s Medical Center | Ascension Texas
- St. David’s HealthCare | St. David’s HealthCare
- Dell Seton Medical Center Announces $280 Million Expansion | Ascension
- Division of Acute Care Surgery, Dell Seton Level I Trauma Center | Dell Medical School
- Licensee Complaint Form | Texas Medical Board
Get Answers Today
If you think that medical negligence, a dangerous drug, or a failed medical product caused harm to you or someone you love, our team is standing by to offer guidance. We’ll explain your options under current laws and help you move forward with clarity and understanding. Case reviews are free and 100% confidential.