Stroke Misdiagnosis Lawyer in Miami

Fighting for Miami Stroke Victims for Over 40 Years

When a stroke goes unrecognized in an emergency room, the consequences can be permanent. Brain cells begin dying within minutes of interrupted blood flow, and the window for effective treatment is narrow. If a physician, neurologist, or hospital failed to diagnose your stroke in time and that failure caused greater harm, you may have a misdiagnosis claim. Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt has handled catastrophic injury and medical malpractice cases for over 40 years, and we’re nationally recognized for the results we’ve achieved for clients facing irreversible harm.

Jed Kurzban, our founding attorney, has been selected to the Super Lawyers list since 2019 and authored How Justice Is Served. We take these cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.

How We Build Stroke Misdiagnosis Cases in Miami

Hospitals and their insurers have resources and in-house legal teams dedicated to contesting medical malpractice claims. We don’t shy away from that opposition. We’ve won trials in trial and appellate courts across the country, and we’re prepared to take a stroke misdiagnosis case through litigation when a fair resolution can’t be reached outside of court.

Every case we handle is built with leading medical professionals, financial analysts, and life-care planners who document what our clients have lost and what they may need going forward. That foundation matters in stroke cases because the long-term costs, including ongoing rehabilitation, assistive care, and lost earning capacity, are often substantial. Our past results include a $7.2 million medical malpractice verdict in a case involving failure to monitor a patient during surgery. Past results don’t guarantee future outcomes, but they reflect how we approach cases that demand serious preparation.

Attorney Jed Kurzban holds an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been included in the 100 Best from American Institute of Personal Injury Lawyers. Our firm is recognized by Lawdragon 100 Leading Attorneys (2024), and acknowledged by Chambers. We also work with a network of local counsel attorneys to coordinate litigation where additional jurisdictional support is needed.

Common Stroke Misdiagnosis Errors in Miami Hospitals

Stroke misdiagnosis most often occurs when providers misattribute symptoms to migraine, inner ear problems, anxiety, or intoxication, particularly in younger patients or those who don’t present with the classic warning signs. Posterior circulation strokes, which affect the back of the brain, can cause dizziness, nausea, unsteady gait, or vision changes rather than one-sided weakness, and they are missed at higher rates.

Provider errors that may support a malpractice claim include:

• Failing to order CT or MRI imaging when stroke symptoms are present
• Failing to activate a stroke protocol promptly
• Not administering thrombolytics (tPA) to an eligible patient within the treatment window
• Failing to transfer a patient to a thrombectomy-capable facility when needed

Liability can extend well beyond the treating physician. Emergency room doctors, neurologists, radiologists, and nurses may each bear responsibility depending on where the breakdown occurred. A hospital may also be held liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior for the negligent acts of its employees, and separately for failures in its own protocols or staffing. Every minute without treatment can mean additional brain cells lost, and the outcomes of delayed stroke diagnosis include permanent disability, cognitive impairment, paralysis, loss of speech, and death.

Damages in a Miami Stroke Misdiagnosis Case

Stroke survivors with significant deficits often face a lifetime of medical and care needs. Economic damages can include past and future medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, lost wages, and diminished earning capacity. Life-care planning testimony is typically required to quantify future needs in serious cases, and we bring that support to every case that warrants it.

Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and disability. Florida’s high court struck down caps on non-economic damages in most medical malpractice cases. Where a stroke misdiagnosis resulted in death, surviving spouses and children under 25 may pursue wrongful death claims under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act for lost support, lost companionship, and mental pain and suffering. Florida law does restrict adult children (age 25 and older) and parents of adult unmarried children from recovering non-economic damages when death results from medical malpractice. Florida’s comparative negligence system may also reduce a recovery by any percentage of fault attributed to the plaintiff.

Florida Law and the Stroke Misdiagnosis Claim Process

What Florida Medical Malpractice Requires You to Prove

Not every missed stroke diagnosis rises to the level of malpractice. A provider can miss a diagnosis and still have acted reasonably under the circumstances, particularly when a patient presents atypically or the last-known-well time is unclear. To pursue a Florida medical malpractice claim, you must prove four elements:

1. A duty of care established by the doctor-patient relationship;
2. a breach of the standard of care (what a reasonably prudent provider in the same specialty would have done);
3. causation linking that breach to the harm;
4. and actual damages.

The standard of care is specialty-specific. What is expected of an emergency physician differs from what is expected of a neurologist or radiologist reviewing imaging. For ischemic stroke, the standard generally requires treating eligible patients with thrombolytic therapy (tPA) within 3 to 4.5 hours of symptom onset unless a documented contraindication exists. Mechanical thrombectomy may be available for large vessel occlusions under imaging-based criteria, with treatment windows extending up to 24 hours in some cases. Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration designates hospitals at four stroke center levels, and certified hospitals are held to the standards of their certification level.

Florida’s Presuit Process and Filing Deadlines

Before a Florida medical malpractice lawsuit can be filed, the claimant must serve a Notice of Intent on each potential defendant healthcare provider. This triggers a mandatory 90-day presuit screening period during which both sides exchange relevant information. The Notice of Intent must be accompanied by a verified written medical opinion corroborating reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant was negligent in the care or treatment of the claimant and that such negligence resulted in injury.

Florida’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice is generally two years from the date of the incident or discovery of the harm, with a four-year absolute cap from the date of the incident. If a healthcare provider’s fraud or intentional concealment prevented discovery, that window may extend to seven years. Missing these deadlines can permanently bar a claim regardless of its underlying merit, which is why early legal review matters for anyone who believes a stroke was misdiagnosed in Miami.

Talk with Our Stroke Misdiagnosis Lawyer in Miami

Florida’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice is generally two years from the date of the incident or the date the harm was discovered. Waiting can cost you the right to bring a claim entirely, so the sooner you speak with our stroke misdiagnosis attorney in Miami, the better your position.