Folsom Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Victim of medical malpractice in Folsom, CA? Discover how a Folsom medical malpractice lawyer can help you seek justice and compensation.
When a hospital stay, a surgery, or a routine appointment leaves you with injuries that should never have happened, the shock is hard to put into words. A preventable medical error can mean more surgery, months away from work, and medical bills that keep growing. Patients treated at hospitals and clinics across Folsom and Sacramento County often cannot tell whether a bad outcome was bad luck or negligence. Meanwhile, hospitals, physicians, and their insurers move quickly to protect themselves.
At Adams & Corzine Injury & Car Accident Lawyers, our personal injury attorneys bring decades of combined experience to medical malpractice claims for injured people throughout Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Placerville, and the greater Sacramento region. We are an AV-rated firm, and our attorneys have represented both injured individuals and insurance carriers, so we know how hospital legal teams build their defenses and how medical insurers evaluate claims. Because we are strategically small by design, you work directly with experienced attorneys from your first call to the end of your case.
Get your free consultation and discover how our medical malpractice attorneys in Folsom, CA, can help you seek the compensation and justice you deserve.
What Is Medical Malpractice in California?
Medical malpractice happens when a healthcare provider, such as a doctor, surgeon, nurse, dentist, or hospital, fails to meet the accepted “standard of care” and that failure directly injures you. The standard of care is what a reasonably competent professional in the same specialty and circumstances would have done.
California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, commonly known as MICRA, governs these claims. It sets specific rules around your filing deadlines, the types of compensation available, and the procedural steps required before a lawsuit can begin.
Do You Have a Medical Malpractice Case?
Not every bad medical outcome is malpractice. Medicine carries real, inherent risks, and complications can arise even when a provider does everything correctly. What determines whether you have a legal claim is whether your provider departed from an accepted professional standard and caused you harm as a direct result.
California law requires four specific elements to be present:
- Duty: A provider-patient relationship existed, creating a legal obligation of competent care.
- Breach: The care you received fell below what a reasonably skilled provider would have done in your situation.
- Causation: That breach directly caused a new injury or significantly worsened a condition, not the underlying illness itself.
- Damages: You suffered measurable harm, including medical expenses, lost income, physical pain, lasting disability, or the death of a loved one.
If you are unsure whether your situation satisfies all four elements, a free consultation is the right place to start.
“My case wasn’t big, but they treated me like it was. Professional, courteous, attentive to my case and always explained everything in detail. I have recommended Adams and Corzine. and will continue to do so.” – June D.
Types of Medical Malpractice Cases We Handle in Folsom
We represent clients throughout Folsom and the greater Sacramento region who have been harmed by preventable medical errors. Here are the case types we handle most often.
Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis
When a provider fails to identify a serious condition, such as cancer, a stroke, a heart attack, or sepsis, while there was still time to treat it effectively, the consequences can be permanent. We pursue cases where a missed or delayed diagnosis directly changed your prognosis or your life.
Surgical and Anesthesia Errors
Wrong-site surgery, retained surgical instruments, and anesthesia dosing mistakes are preventable errors that cause catastrophic harm. When a provider’s failure to follow established protocols changes everything, we are here to hold them accountable.
Birth Injury and OB Negligence
Mistakes during labor and delivery can leave a child with permanent disabilities, including cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, and brain damage from oxygen deprivation. We represent families who face a lifetime of consequences because of a provider’s failure to act decisively when it mattered most.
Medication and Pharmacy Errors
A wrong prescription, a dangerous drug interaction, or a miscalculated dose can cause as much harm as a surgical mistake. Prescribing and dispensing errors are preventable, and providers who fail to exercise basic care must answer for what follows.
Emergency Room Discharge Errors
Releasing a patient before they are medically stable is a serious form of hospital negligence. We handle cases where premature ER discharge led to a preventable decline or the wrongful death of a family member.
Hospital-Acquired Infections and Sepsis
Hospitals that fail to maintain proper infection control standards put vulnerable patients at serious risk. When those failures lead to a preventable infection or a delayed sepsis diagnosis, we pursue accountability against the institution.
Nursing Home Neglect
Residents of skilled nursing facilities are entitled to competent, consistent care. When understaffing or negligence causes pressure ulcers, preventable falls, or medication errors, we pursue claims on behalf of elderly victims and their families.
Dental Malpractice
Malpractice does not only happen in operating rooms. Permanent nerve damage from a botched extraction, anesthesia complications, and a dentist’s failure to diagnose oral cancer are all valid grounds for a legal claim.
Compensation Available under California’s MICRA
MICRA separates your potential recovery into economic and non-economic damages, and different rules govern each category.
| Type of Damages | What It Covers | California Rule |
| Economic | Medical bills, lost wages, future care costs, and out-of-pocket expenses | No cap |
| Non-economic | Pain, suffering, disability, and loss of enjoyment of life | Capped at $470,000 (injury) or $650,000 (death) in 2026, rising each January 1 |
| Punitive | Conduct that is intentional, egregious, or grossly reckless | Available in limited circumstances |
Economic damages, the financial losses you can document with bills and care projections, have no cap under California law. Non-economic damages are subject to MICRA’s limits under Civil Code § 3333.2, as amended by AB 35. For 2026, the cap is $470,000 in injury cases and $650,000 in wrongful death cases. These amounts rise each January 1, by $40,000 and $50,000, until they reach $750,000 and $1,000,000, and the amount in effect at the time of the judgment, arbitration award, or settlement is the one that applies. Separate caps can apply to health care providers, to health care institutions, and to unaffiliated providers or institutions. We will explain exactly how those numbers apply to your case at no cost to you.
What we see across the medical malpractice claims we handle in Folsom and Sacramento County is that hospital insurers often lead with the MICRA cap and treat it as the full value of the case. The cap limits only non-economic damages. Lost income and future care costs have no cap, and for a patient who needs months of follow-up care at a facility such as UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, those economic losses can make up most of the claim. We build a detailed picture of care needs and lost earnings early so the conversation does not start and end with the cap.
How Long You Have to File in California
California generally allows three years from the date of injury, or one year from when you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury, whichever comes first (Code of Civil Procedure § 340.5). Longer deadlines can apply in limited situations, such as a foreign object left in the body, fraud or intentional concealment, and some claims involving young children. If a public hospital or other government entity is responsible, you generally must present a written government claims notice within six months of the injury before you can sue (Government Code § 911.2).
California law also requires you to give a health care provider at least 90 days of written notice before filing a malpractice lawsuit (Code of Civil Procedure § 364). We use that pre-filing period to pursue settlement when appropriate. Missing these deadlines can permanently bar your right to recover, so if you believe a medical error harmed you, do not wait to find out where you stand.
One pattern we consistently see in medical malpractice claims in Sacramento County is that patients lose valuable time before they realize a provider made a mistake. Someone discharged from an emergency room may spend weeks at follow-up visits before a second doctor at a facility such as Sutter Roseville Medical Center points to a missed diagnosis. The one-year discovery clock under Code of Civil Procedure § 340.5 can start before the patient feels sure, so we begin gathering records as soon as there is a reasonable suspicion. When a public hospital or county clinic is involved, we also track the six-month government claim deadline from day one.
Who Pays for Experts and Case Costs?
Medical malpractice cases require significant upfront investment in qualified medical experts, deposition transcripts, records retrieval, and court filing fees.
We handle medical malpractice cases with no fee unless we win. You pay nothing upfront, and we only get paid if we win your case. For a family already carrying the financial weight of a serious medical injury, there is no barrier to getting the experienced legal help you need.
“Doug and Gabriela’s efforts were very much appreciated and even though my case was a small one they still treated me like it mattered. Doug explained things as the case progressed making sure that I understood what was happening and why.” – Brian B.
Hospitals and Providers in Our Cases
Our office is in Folsom, and we pursue claims involving medical facilities and providers throughout the Sacramento region, including those listed below. We know how these institutions operate, and we use that knowledge to build the strongest possible case for our clients.
- Mercy Hospital of Folsom (Dignity Health)
- Kaiser Permanente Folsom Medical Offices
- Sutter Roseville Medical Center
- Mercy San Juan Medical Center
- UC Davis Medical Center
- Marshall Medical Center in Placerville
- Urgent care clinics, dental practices, and skilled nursing facilities throughout El Dorado Hills, Granite Bay, Rancho Cordova, and surrounding communities
In our experience handling medical malpractice cases for Folsom families, the first fight is often over records. A patient may be seen at Mercy Hospital of Folsom, a Kaiser Permanente facility, and UC Davis Medical Center during the same illness, and each keeps its own chart. We request the complete record from every provider, including nursing notes and medication logs, because gaps between facilities are where missed handoffs tend to show up. Whether a case is heard in Sacramento County Superior Court or in arbitration, it often turns on what those records show.
What Happens after You Call Us
We manage every stage of your case, from gathering records to presenting at trial, and keep you informed at every step. Here is what to expect.
Step 1: Free Case Review
You tell us what happened, we listen without judgment, and we give you an honest, direct assessment of your legal options with no obligation to move forward.
Step 2: Records Review and Expert Screening
We obtain your medical records and have them independently reviewed by a qualified expert in the relevant specialty. That review establishes whether the standard of care was breached and gives us the foundation to build your case.
Step 3: Pre-Lawsuit Notice and Demand
California requires a 90-day notice period before a lawsuit can be filed. We use this window to present a formal settlement demand to the defendant’s insurer, and many cases resolve at this stage without the cost and delay of litigation.
Step 4: Filing and Discovery
If the insurer refuses a fair resolution, we file suit and enter discovery, the court-supervised process of exchanging evidence, records, and sworn expert testimony from both sides.
Step 5: Mediation
Many cases go through mediation before trial. Mediation is a structured negotiation with a neutral third-party mediator. We arrive at every mediation with a thoroughly documented case and a settlement position we are fully prepared to defend.
Step 6: Trial
When an insurer refuses to be reasonable, we take the case before a jury. We build every file from day one as though trial is where it will end, and that level of preparation is exactly what compels fair settlements before it gets there.
Why Adams & Corzine Injury & Car Accident Lawyers
Adams & Corzine Injury & Car Accident Lawyers is an AV-rated civil litigation firm based at 740 Oak Avenue Parkway, Suite 120, in Folsom. We remain strategically small by design so that every client works directly with an experienced attorney, not a case manager who passes your file down a chain.
Our attorneys have represented both injured individuals and insurance carriers. That experience from both sides shows us how defense attorneys construct their arguments, how adjusters arrive at a settlement offer, and where they expect the pressure to make you accept less. We use every bit of it to your advantage.
“Doug Adams handled my complicated personal injury case with excellent results. His staff is responsive and competent. Doug is a professional and straight forward lawyer who I would be happy to hire again or recommend.” – Timothy
Medical Malpractice Lawyer FAQ
Can I Still File a Claim if I Signed a Consent Form before My Procedure?
A consent form covers the known, foreseeable risks of a procedure. It does not release a provider from the obligation to deliver that care competently. If negligence caused your harm, the form you signed does not bar your claim.
Can I Pursue Claims against More Than One Provider at the Same Time?
Yes. If a surgeon, anesthesiologist, hospital, or nursing staff each contributed to your injury, each can be named as a defendant. Our investigation identifies every responsible party so that no one avoids accountability.
Does Kaiser Permanente Require Arbitration Instead of a Court Lawsuit?
Many Kaiser Permanente members have agreed in their health plan contracts to resolve disputes through binding arbitration rather than a civil trial. Our attorneys have arbitration experience and know how to present a compelling case within that system.
What if I Only Recently Learned that a Medical Error Caused My Injury?
California’s discovery rule starts the one-year filing clock from the moment you knew, or reasonably should have known, about the injury. In most cases, the claim must still be filed within three years of the injury. If that realization came recently, you may still be within the window. Reach out and we will tell you.
Do I Need to Hire My Own Medical Expert before Filing a Claim?
In most cases, California law requires expert testimony to establish that the standard of care was breached. We retain qualified experts in the relevant specialty as part of our contingency fee representation, with no upfront cost to you.
How Are Dental Malpractice Claims Different from Medical Malpractice Claims?
The four legal elements of duty, breach, causation, and damages apply equally to dental cases. In practice, dental claims most often involve permanent nerve damage from extractions or implants, anesthesia errors, and a failure to diagnose oral cancer or serious infection.
Contact Adams & Corzine Injury & Car Accident Lawyers Today
Discovering that the providers you trusted caused you serious and lasting harm is both devastating and disorienting, and facing a hospital’s legal team or a physician’s insurance carrier alone is not a position you should be in. You deserve experienced advocates who know how the other side operates and are unequivocally on your side.
Call (916) 983-3900 or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation at our office at 740 Oak Avenue Parkway, Suite 120, in Folsom, and discover how our medical malpractice attorneys can help with your case. We will review what happened, answer your questions plainly, and tell you exactly where you stand.
