Parkland Hospital Dallas Malpractice Lawyer

Trial-Ready Hospital Negligence Attorneys for Parkland Hospital Patients and Families

The Types of Parkland Hospital Lawsuits Our Hospital Malpractice Attorneys Handle

Hastings Law Firm handles Parkland Hospital lawsuits in Dallas, Texas, arising from trauma and emergency care, labor and delivery, newborn intensive care, and surgery. Our attorneys build each claim from the complete record of the care the patient received. Our hospital malpractice lawyers then measure that care against the accepted standard to show where it went wrong and what the injury has taken from the family.

The cases we see most often at a public trauma and teaching hospital like Parkland Hospital include:

• Trauma and emergency care errors. An injury or illness can be missed after a patient arrives, including at the trauma center, or its treatment can begin later than it should. Time lost in those first hours can turn a treatable condition into permanent harm or a fatal one. Our Dallas medical misdiagnosis lawyers reconstruct the hours after arrival from the admission notes, the imaging results, and each order that followed.
• Labor, delivery, and newborn intensive care errors. A sign of fetal distress can go unanswered, a delivery can be delayed, or a newborn’s worsening condition in intensive care can go unrecognized. An injury at birth can affect a child for life and change how a family lives from day to day. Our Dallas birth injury lawyers read the fetal heart tracings and the neonatal charting side by side with the delivery record.
• Surgical errors and missed complications. An organ or blood vessel can be injured during an operation, or bleeding, infection, or another complication can go unnoticed once it is over. The patient may face more surgery, a longer hospital stay, and additional recovery time. Our Dallas surgical error lawyers set the operative report beside the nursing and monitoring records from the days after surgery.

While these are common claim types, our hospital malpractice attorneys handle any valid medical negligence case that arises at this hospital.

About Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas County’s Public Teaching Hospital

Parkland Memorial Hospital is a large public teaching hospital at 5200 Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas, Texas. The Dallas County Hospital District does business as Parkland Health and is governed by an eleven-member Board of Managers appointed by the Dallas County Commissioners Court. Parkland is the primary teaching hospital for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Patients with the most serious injuries are treated at The Rees-Jones Trauma Center at Parkland Health, which the state lists as a Level I trauma facility. Parkland also runs the Parkland Burn Center, which it describes as verified by the American Burn Association.

Women in labor are directed to the Labor and Delivery Triage department on the third floor of the hospital, and the campus lists Women & Infants’ Specialty Health (WISH). The Texas Department of State Health Services lists Parkland Memorial Hospital as a Level IV maternal facility. Newborns who need intensive care go to Parkland’s Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), a level the state’s neonatal designation list also records.

One patient’s care at Parkland can pass through the trauma bay, the operating room, intensive care, and teams that include residents and fellows in training. Each of those stops keeps its own records, and a claim has to draw on all of them. Beyond the hospital campus, Parkland Health operates a network of community-based health centers and clinics across its system.

Can You File a Lawsuit Against Parkland Hospital, the Doctor, or Both?

You may be able to sue Parkland Hospital, the doctor who treated you, or both, depending on whose care caused the harm and who employed each provider. Parkland Hospital is run by the Dallas County Hospital District, a governmental unit, so a claim against the district generally falls under the Texas Tort Claims Act.

The hospital district answers for the negligence of its own employees, such as the nurses and technicians on its units, and for its own conduct as an institution. A physician answers for the care that physician personally gave. Which of them bears responsibility for a patient’s injury depends on the records and on the arrangement behind each provider’s role.

Medical care carries risk, and not every poor result means someone was negligent. When harm could have been prevented, the providers responsible should be held accountable. Our Dallas hospital malpractice lawyers will tell you plainly which of those two situations your records show. Our firm also represents patients injured at other Dallas hospitals, including Advanced Dallas Hospital and Clinics and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.

The first job for a lawyer to sue a hospital is identifying every health care provider involved and who employed each one. Texas also requires early support from a qualified medical expert. Section 74.351 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code sets the deadline for the expert report. It is due no later than the 120th day after each defendant’s original answer is filed.

How Does the Texas Tort Claims Act Apply When a Parkland Resident or Physician Treated You?

Whether the Texas Tort Claims Act reaches a Parkland resident or physician who treated you depends on who employed that provider. The Act governs claims against a governmental unit, such as the county hospital district that runs Parkland Hospital in Dallas. The Act sits in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 101, and its notice and damage rules are stricter than the ordinary ones.

The Act waives the hospital district’s immunity only in limited situations. Under Section 101.021, the district can be held liable for injury caused by an employee’s use of a motor vehicle or motor-driven equipment, or by a condition or use of tangible personal or real property. In McCall v. Dallas County Hospital District, a Texas appeals court held that Parkland’s failure to use a monitored bed, oxygen equipment, and a heart monitor did not fall within that waiver. How the harm happened can decide whether a claim against the district goes forward at all.

The notice rule is the first to come due. Section 101.101 generally requires written notice to the governmental unit no later than six months after the day of the incident that caused the injury. The notice has to describe the injury, the time and place of the incident, and the incident itself. That requirement does not apply when the unit already had actual notice, meaning it was actually aware of the injury, of the people involved, and that its own fault may have contributed to it.

The Act defines an employee as a person in the paid service of a governmental unit, and independent contractors fall outside that definition. At Parkland, the Graduate Medical Education office is the employer of the residents and fellows who care for patients there.

A physician who treats a patient at Parkland may be paid by a different body, such as UT Southwestern, a component institution of The University of Texas System. Another physician may practice as an independent contractor. The employment records and contracts behind each provider’s role show which applies, and a patient rarely sees those documents during care.

The Act also makes the choice of whom to sue binding. Filing suit against the governmental unit is an irrevocable election that bars a suit against its employee over the same subject matter. When a suit names both the unit and its employee, the employee is dismissed on the unit’s motion. A suit against an employee over work within the scope of the job can be dismissed unless the pleadings are amended to name the unit.

Because that choice cannot be undone, each provider’s employer has to be identified before anything is filed. The six-month notice window leaves limited time for that work, which is why an early call protects a family’s options.

How We Work With Injured Parkland Hospital Patients and Their Families

Hastings Law Firm represents injured Parkland Hospital patients and their families in Dallas, Texas, in malpractice claims from the first phone call to a settlement or a jury verdict. Our Dallas medical malpractice lawyers request the records, work with medical experts, and meet the notice deadlines that apply to a public hospital.

A member of our intake team takes your first call, and a relative can call for a patient who is too ill or injured to do it. Members of our intake team speak Spanish. Share what you remember about the care at Parkland, the dates, and the people involved. Our team works to make sure you are heard, and your account is the starting point of our review.

We request the complete medical records for you. Our attorneys and medical professionals go through the trauma notes, operative reports, labor and delivery records, and NICU charting to establish what was done, what was missed, and when. If our hospital negligence lawyers take your case, we build it on those records and on qualified experts who can explain them.

From then on, we handle every contact with the hospital district, its insurer, and its lawyers, so you never face them yourself. Our board-certified patient advocates stay in contact with you and explain each development in plain language as it happens. Our hospital malpractice attorneys pursue a settlement that reflects what the injury has cost your family. When an offer falls short, we are prepared to take your case to a jury.

If You or a Loved One Were Injured at Parkland Hospital, Speak With Our Medical Attorneys Today

Hastings Law Firm’s hospital malpractice lawyers handle claims for patients and families in Dallas, Texas, who were hurt by care at Parkland Hospital. Our hospital negligence lawyers look into what happened, who may be responsible, and how much time remains under the notice rules for a public hospital.

Our team is here for you. We perform a free case review to find out whether you have a valid claim, and what you tell us stays confidential. You pay no fee unless we win. Let us help you find the answers you deserve.