Salt Lake City Medical Negligence Lawyer

Are you looking for a medical negligence lawyer in Salt Lake City, UT?

At Rasmussen & Miner, we are trusted medical negligence lawyers with over 40 years of experience.

If a doctor, nurse, or hospital caused you harm in Salt Lake City, you may be facing new medical bills, lost income, and questions nobody at the hospital wants to answer. Our firm has represented injured patients across Utah for more than four decades and has recovered millions of dollars for people hurt by preventable medical errors. A Salt Lake City, UT medical negligence lawyer from our firm can review your records, explain your options, and handle your claim from the first phone call through resolution. Schedule a free consultation today.

Medical Negligence Lawyer Salt Lake City

Medical negligence occurs when a health care provider fails to deliver the level of care that a reasonably careful provider would have delivered in the same situation, and that failure injures the patient. A bad outcome alone is not negligence. The law asks whether the provider deviated from the accepted standard of care and whether that deviation caused harm.

Utah medical facilities reported 258 patient safety events to the state Department of Health and Human Services in 2024, according to the annual patient safety report, which notes that reported events may not capture all of them. Behind numbers like that are real patients. A Salt Lake City medical negligence attorney can help you find out whether what happened to you was preventable, and who is legally responsible for it.

Types of Medical Negligence Cases We Handle in Salt Lake City

Our firm handles the full range of medical negligence claims against physicians, nurses, hospitals, and other providers in Salt Lake City, UT. Every case begins with a careful review of the medical records and, where warranted, consultation with qualified medical professionals. These are the case types we see most often.

• Surgical errors. Wrong-site procedures, damage to surrounding organs and nerves, retained instruments, and preventable post-operative infections. We investigate what went wrong in the operating room and who failed to follow procedure.

• Doctor malpractice. Physicians who fail to order appropriate tests, ignore symptoms, or depart from accepted treatment standards. We build proof through records, imaging, and testimony from practicing physicians.

• Hospital negligence. Understaffing, communication breakdowns between departments, charting failures, and unsafe discharge decisions. Hospitals are responsible for the systems they run. When a facility’s policies contribute to patient harm, the facility itself can be held accountable.

• Emergency room errors. Missed heart attacks, strokes, infections, and internal injuries in busy ER settings. Utah law applies a heightened proof standard in some emergency care claims, so early legal review matters.

• Nursing errors. Failure to monitor patients, missed changes in vital signs, preventable falls, and medication administration mistakes at the bedside. Nurses are often the last safeguard between a physician’s order and the patient.

• Misdiagnosis and failure to diagnose. Cancer, heart disease, infections, and other serious conditions that were missed or caught too late. A delayed diagnosis can turn a treatable illness into a fatal one. We work with medical specialists to establish when the condition should have been identified.

• Stroke misdiagnosis. Strokes mistaken for migraines, vertigo, or intoxication, particularly in younger patients. Treatment windows are measured in hours, and a missed window often means permanent disability that timely care could have prevented.

• Aneurysms. Warning signs like sudden severe headache dismissed without imaging or follow-up. A ruptured aneurysm that could have been detected and repaired is one of the most devastating failures in medicine.

• Birth injuries. Oxygen deprivation, delayed C-sections, and improper use of delivery instruments, including cases involving cerebral palsy and Erb’s palsy. These conditions often require lifelong care, and we calculate damages that account for decades of future needs.

• Prescription and medication errors. Wrong drug, wrong dose, dangerous drug interactions, and pharmacy dispensing mistakes. AHRQ patient safety research identifies medication errors as one of the most common sources of preventable patient harm in American health care.

Why Choose Rasmussen & Miner as my Medical Negligence Lawyer in Salt Lake City, UT?

Four Decades of Utah Malpractice Experience

Attorney Robert C. Miner has practiced law since 1981, with a focus that includes medical malpractice, personal injury, and criminal defense. He earned his philosophy degree from the University of Utah in 1978 and his J.D. from Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1981. He has spent his entire career in Utah courtrooms. That matters here, because malpractice claims follow procedural rules that differ from every other kind of injury case, and experience with those rules is exactly what you should demand from a medical malpractice lawyer in Salt Lake City, UT.

Outside the courtroom, Rob officiates swim meets at the college and high school levels and lives in Holladay with his wife and their three children. He is part of this community, and the clients we represent are his neighbors.

Proven Results

Our firm has recovered millions of dollars for injured patients and their families, including these medical malpractice results:

• $34,540,000 medical malpractice recovery

• $22,180,000 medical malpractice recovery

• $19,560,000 medical malpractice recovery

• $7,870,000 medical malpractice recovery

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes, but they show our firm knows how to build and win substantial malpractice cases. We offer a free consultation, so it costs nothing to find out whether you have a claim.

Understanding Medical Negligence Cases

Damages, Liability, and Compensation for Medical Negligence Cases

To win a medical negligence case in Utah, you must prove four things. Each element requires evidence, and the defense will contest all of them.

• Duty. The provider owed you a professional duty of care, established by the provider-patient relationship.

• Breach. The provider failed to meet the accepted standard of care.

• Causation. The breach, not your underlying condition, caused the harm.

• Damages. You suffered actual, measurable losses.

Economic damages cover medical bills, future care costs, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity. Non-economic damages cover pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. Utah caps non-economic damages in malpractice actions at $450,000 for causes of action arising on or after May 15, 2010, under Utah Code 78B-3-410. Economic damages are not capped, and in a catastrophic injury case, future care alone can run into the millions. When a patient dies, families may pursue a wrongful death claim, which follows its own rules on recoverable damages.

What Are Important Aspects of a Medical Negligence Case?

The single most important deadline is the statute of limitations. Under Utah Code 78B-3-404, a malpractice action must be filed within two years after the patient discovers the injury, or reasonably should have discovered it, and no later than four years after the act itself. Narrow exceptions exist for foreign objects left in the body and fraudulent concealment. Waiting costs cases. Records get purged, witnesses move, and memories fade.

Several other features distinguish these claims from ordinary injury cases:

• Medical testimony is required. We retain specialists in the same field as the defendant to establish what should have happened.

• Records tell the story. Charts, imaging, lab results, and nursing notes form the backbone of every claim, and even documentation errors can themselves point to negligence.

• Multiple defendants are common. A surgeon, an anesthesiologist, nurses, and the hospital may share responsibility, and identifying every accountable party affects the total recovery.

Systemic problems frequently sit behind individual mistakes. Overworked nurses and understaffed floors raise error rates, and patient falls remain a leading source of preventable injury in Utah hospitals. When the system failed you, the system should answer for it.

What Is The Medical Negligence Case Timeline?

Utah imposes pre-suit requirements on malpractice claims that do not apply to other injury cases, so the timeline has more steps than most clients expect. Under the Utah Health Care Malpractice Act, a claimant must serve each provider with a notice of intent at least 90 days before filing suit, and most claims then proceed through a prelitigation review process before a complaint can be filed.

A typical case moves through these stages:

• Investigation and record review, usually one to four months

• Notice of intent and prelitigation review, adding several months before filing

• Filing and discovery, often 12 to 18 months, including depositions of providers and medical witnesses

• Settlement negotiations or mediation, possible at any point once the evidence takes shape

• Trial, if the insurer will not pay fair value

Complex cases involving anesthesia errors or labor and delivery errors may take longer because the medicine itself is contested. Two years from start to resolution is common. Some cases settle faster. Some do not.

What Should You Bring to Your Medical Negligence Consultation?

You do not need a complete file to meet with us. Bring what you have, and we will obtain the rest.

• Names of every provider, clinic, and hospital involved in your care

• Any medical records, discharge papers, imaging discs, or test results in your possession

• A timeline of your treatment, written in your own words, with dates as best you remember them

• Bills, insurance statements, and proof of missed work

The consultation is free and confidential. We will listen to what happened and give you an honest assessment of whether the facts support a claim. If you are unsure whether you were a victim of medical negligence, that is precisely what the consultation is for.

Salt Lake City Courts and Local Medical Negligence Resources

Medical negligence lawsuits arising in Salt Lake City are filed in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court, which sits at the Matheson Courthouse at 450 South State Street in downtown Salt Lake City. Salt Lake County is home to several major hospital systems, including large facilities operated by Intermountain Health, University of Utah Health, and HCA, along with dozens of surgical centers and clinics. High patient volume means high stakes when safety systems break down.

Utah also operates a patient safety program that requires licensed facilities to report qualifying patient safety events to the state within 72 hours. Those reporting systems serve public health purposes, but they do not compensate injured patients. Compensation requires a legal claim, and that is where our firm comes in.

Reach Out to Rasmussen & Miner to Schedule a Consultation

If a medical provider’s mistake changed your life, talk to a Salt Lake City medical negligence lawyer before Utah’s filing deadlines close your window. Your consultation with Rasmussen & Miner is free, and we will respond promptly to review your situation and explain your next steps. Contact us today to schedule your free consultation with our firm.