Protecting Patient Rights, Calling for Critical Changes

This past spring Managing Partner, Andrew Finkelstein & Senior Trial Attorney George Levy met with legislators in Albany to promote and protect New Yorkers’ rights. Among the topics discussed was Lavern’s Law, pending legislation that greatly impacts victims of medical malpractice.

“New York is one of only a handful of states where people harmed by medical mistakes and their families are prevented from holding wrongdoers accountable. The deadline for bringing a civil action (“the statute of limitations”) for medical malpractice can run out before you can even find out that a medical error has been made.’ @PassLavernsLaw. If legislators choose to pass Lavern’s Law the statute of limitations would begin once a patient first discovers that he or she has been harmed by a doctor or hospital.” – 2017 Civil Justice Lobby Day

Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced his support of Lavern’s Law. It is now up to legislatures to vote on the bill.

Lavern’s Law was named after Ms. Lavern Wilkinson.

“In 2010, a Brooklyn woman named Lavern Wilkinson went to Kings County Hospital with chest pain. An X-ray was taken. It looked fine, a first-year resident in the emergency room said, and Ms. Wilkinson was sent home.

She wasn’t fine. She started to have breathing troubles, which hospital doctors ascribed to asthma. But in 2012 they looked again at the old X-ray, and saw what should have been noticed at the start: a small mass, plausibly curable at the time. It had since developed into full-blown lung cancer, and spread to other organs. In March 2013, Ms. Wilkinson died at age 41.”-New York Times

Show your support by following @PassLavernsLaw on Facebook. To learn more about medical malpractice click here.