Mississippi Medical Malpractice Lawyer
A medical malpractice case succeeds when a patient can show, through qualified expert testimony and a clean paper trail, that a provider’s care fell below the accepted standard and that the lapse caused real harm. Getting there takes a team that knows how injury cases against hospitals, surgeons, and insurers are built and how they are defended. Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is a Mississippi and Louisiana injury firm that handles personal injury, wrongful death, and serious-injury claims for people across Jackson, the Gulf Coast, Hattiesburg, Southaven, the Delta, and communities throughout the state.
Medical malpractice is not the same thing as a bad outcome. Surgery can go wrong, a drug can fail, and a disease can progress despite excellent care, and none of that is malpractice by itself. What separates a viable claim is a departure from what a reasonably careful provider in the same field would have done: a missed diagnosis that a standard test would have caught, a surgical error, a medication mistake, a failure to monitor, or a delay in sending a patient to a specialist. Mississippi also layers procedural hurdles onto these cases that ordinary injury claims do not face, and those hurdles are where many cases are won or lost before a jury ever hears them.
Our lawyers spend their careers representing injured people against well-funded insurers, and that perspective carries into medical negligence claims. The questions to ask early are specific: what exactly did the provider do or fail to do, which medical records prove it, what did the harm cost, and how many months remain before the filing deadline closes the courthouse door.
Why Choose Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe for a Mississippi Medical Malpractice Claim
Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC represents injured people throughout Mississippi, from Jackson and Madison to Hattiesburg, Southaven, the Gulf Coast, and the Delta, with a practice built around people hurt by someone else’s carelessness. Our attorneys bring over 75 years of combined experience, and we have recovered more than $100 million in settlements for our clients. Consultations are free, we advance the costs of the case, and we are paid only if we recover for you. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, and we speak Spanish for clients who prefer to work in their own language.
The team handling injury and wrongful death matters includes Rob Lunsford, Founding Partner, who has spent his entire legal career representing injured workers; Brad Baskin and Jennifer Priebe, Partners, both recognized by Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and The National Trial Lawyers; and attorneys Andrew Rueff, Keaton Belk, Erin Heimlicher, and Jared Martin. Andrew Rueff has successfully tried dozens of jury and bench trials to verdict and has argued personal injury and insurance cases before state appellate courts, which matters in a field where defendants often choose to fight rather than settle. The firm was also ranked by Best Law Firms in 2026 for Workers’ Compensation Law, Claimants, in Jackson.
Our track record is built on serious injuries that required medical proof to win: a $685,000 settlement for a surgical tech with a lower back injury, $600,000 for a construction worker with a complex back injury, $385,000 for a project manager injured when his work vehicle was struck, and $221,000 for an oil rig worker with severe burns. Those results come from cases where insurers argued causation, blamed pre-existing conditions, and questioned the extent of harm, the same arguments malpractice defendants make. Clients regularly tell us they valued being listened to and kept informed, and that is how we run every file.
What Counts as Medical Malpractice in Mississippi
- Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis: A provider who fails to order a standard test, misreads imaging, or dismisses symptoms that point to cancer, stroke, infection, or a cardiac event can be liable when earlier detection would have changed the outcome. The harm is the lost chance at treatment, not the disease itself.
- Surgical Errors: Wrong-site surgery, nerve or organ damage from a slip, retained instruments, and mistakes in anesthesia management fall here. Hospitals and surgical centers across the state perform these procedures daily, and the operative report and nursing counts are often the first records we review.
- Medication and Prescription Errors: Wrong drug, wrong dose, missed allergy warnings, and dangerous interactions can come from the prescriber, the pharmacy, or the nursing staff administering the drug.
- Birth Injuries: Failure to respond to fetal distress, mishandled deliveries, and delayed cesarean decisions can cause lifelong conditions such as cerebral palsy or brachial plexus injuries, producing some of the largest damages in the field.
- Failure to Monitor and Hospital Negligence: Inadequate staffing, missed vital-sign changes, pressure injuries, patient falls, and hospital-acquired infections can reflect institutional failures rather than a single provider’s mistake.
- Emergency Room Errors: Patients sent home with a heart attack, aortic dissection, or spinal infection after an inadequate workup are a recurring source of claims, since emergency physicians must rule out the dangerous causes of the symptoms in front of them.
- Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Neglect: Untreated bedsores, medication lapses, and missed warning signs in facilities can lead to serious injury or death and may support wrongful death claims.
- Treatment Delays After a Work Injury: When a doctor treating a job injury misses a fracture or botches a surgery, the injured worker may have both a workers’ compensation claim and a separate malpractice claim, and the two have to be coordinated carefully.
What to Do If You Think a Provider’s Mistake Harmed You
Start with your medical care. If your condition is unstable, get treated, ideally by a different provider than the one you suspect made the error. Then begin preserving evidence. Request complete copies of your records from every provider and facility involved, including imaging, lab results, nursing notes, discharge instructions, and billing statements, and keep a dated journal of symptoms, missed work, and out-of-pocket costs. Do not sign a release or accept a quick payment from a hospital’s risk manager or insurer before speaking with a lawyer, and do not post details about your care on social media, where defense lawyers look for contradictions.
The clock matters more here than in most injury cases. Mississippi gives a medical malpractice plaintiff two years under the statute that governs these claims, which is shorter than the three-year period that applies to many other negligence cases. Claims against a county hospital or other governmental entity are even tighter, with a one-year limit and a notice requirement under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. Where an injury was not and could not reasonably have been discovered right away, the discovery rule can affect when the period starts, but relying on it without legal advice is a gamble. Wrongful death claims arising from malpractice should be evaluated immediately for the same reason.
Practically, these cases are filed in the circuit court of the county where the claim arose, and claims involving diverse parties or federal issues can end up in the Northern or Southern District of Mississippi. Cases arising in Hinds County proceed in the Seventh Circuit Court District, while patients treated on the Gulf Coast, in Hattiesburg, or in DeSoto County would typically see a different county circuit court and, if the case is federal, the Southern District’s Southern or Eastern Division or the Northern District’s Oxford Division. Before any filing, a Mississippi malpractice case generally requires a qualified medical expert to review the care and support the claim, and that expert work is front-loaded and expensive. This is one reason we advance the costs of the case, so a client is not asked to fund that review out of pocket. Expect the process to take considerable time, with records review, expert opinions, depositions of the providers, and mediation or trial preparation all coming before any resolution.
Damages, Caps, and Fault in Mississippi Malpractice Cases
Mississippi separates damages into economic losses and noneconomic losses. Economic damages cover medical bills, future care, lost income, and reduced earning capacity, and the state’s statutory limit does not cap them. Noneconomic damages, meaning pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and similar harms, are capped at $500,000 in a medical malpractice case under Mississippi Code section 11-1-60. That cap makes the economic side of the case especially important: a young patient with a lifetime of future medical needs and lost earnings can recover very large economic damages even though pain and suffering is limited. Building a credible life care plan and a vocational and economic analysis is therefore central to valuing the claim.
Fault is also a live issue. Mississippi follows pure comparative negligence, so if a jury finds that a patient contributed to the harm, such as by ignoring discharge instructions or failing to disclose a medication, the award is reduced by that percentage rather than eliminated. Defendants often push this argument hard, and we prepare for it by documenting what the patient actually told providers and what the providers actually did with that information.
Malpractice should not be confused with a workers’ compensation dispute, which runs through a separate system. If your underlying problem is a job injury, the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission, not a court, handles the benefits claim, and a worker generally must report the injury to the employer within 30 days and file within two years. But when the treatment of a work injury itself goes wrong, the compensation claim and the malpractice claim run on separate tracks with separate deadlines, and one can affect the other.
Questions About Mississippi Medical Malpractice Claims
How long do I have to file a medical malpractice lawsuit in Mississippi?
The general period is two years under the statute governing medical malpractice. Claims against a county hospital or other governmental body face a one-year limit and a notice requirement under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. Because these deadlines are short and exceptions are narrow, you should speak with an attorney as soon as you suspect a problem.
Does the discovery rule give me more time if I did not know about the mistake?
For injuries that could not reasonably have been discovered right away, the cause of action may not begin to run until the patient discovers or should have discovered the injury through reasonable diligence. Courts apply this carefully, and waiting to see whether it helps you is risky. An attorney can analyze when the clock started in your situation.
Is a bad result the same as malpractice?
No. Medicine carries inherent risk, and a poor outcome does not prove negligence. A claim requires showing that the provider departed from the accepted standard of care and that the departure caused your harm, usually through testimony from a qualified medical expert.
Is there a limit on what I can recover?
Noneconomic damages in a medical malpractice case are capped at $500,000. The cap does not apply to economic damages such as medical expenses and lost income, so a case with major financial losses can still be worth far more than the cap suggests.
What if I was partly at fault for my injury?
Mississippi uses pure comparative negligence. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault rather than barred, so even a patient found partly responsible can still recover the remainder.
Do I need an expert witness to bring a malpractice case?
In practice, yes. Malpractice turns on medical questions that a jury cannot resolve without expert opinion about the standard of care and causation. Securing the right specialist early is one of the most important steps in building the case, and we advance those costs.
Can I sue if my loved one died because of a medical error?
A wrongful death claim based on medical negligence is possible, and the malpractice deadline should be treated as the controlling concern given how short it is. Delaying can forfeit the claim, so family members should consult a lawyer promptly after a death they believe was preventable.
Can I bring a malpractice claim over care I received for a work injury?
Yes, in appropriate cases. A workers’ compensation claim and a malpractice claim against a negligent treating provider are separate matters with different forums and deadlines. Handling both through one firm helps keep them from working against each other.
Will my health insurance cover treatment while my claim is pending?
Often yes, and you should keep treating rather than waiting for a settlement. Your insurer may later assert a right to be repaid from a recovery, so tracking what was paid and negotiating those reimbursement claims is part of the settlement process.
Is it worth hiring a lawyer if my injury seems modest?
Malpractice cases are expensive to develop because of expert costs, so a claim with limited damages may not be economically viable. A free consultation lets us tell you honestly whether the likely recovery justifies the effort, and since we are paid only if we recover, you risk nothing to find out.
How long does a malpractice case take?
Most take well over a year and many take longer, because records must be gathered, experts retained, providers deposed, and settlement efforts exhausted before trial. Complex cases involving catastrophic injury or multiple defendants take the longest.
Serving Medical Malpractice Clients Across Mississippi
Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC represents injured patients and families throughout Mississippi. In and around Jackson, we serve clients in Madison, Ridgeland, Clinton, Flowood, Pearl, Brandon, Byram, Terry, and Raymond, as well as communities across Hinds, Rankin, and Madison counties. Moving south, we work with families in Hattiesburg, Laurel, Columbia, McComb, Brookhaven, and Natchez, and along the Gulf Coast in Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula, Bay St. Louis, and Waveland.
To the north and west, our reach extends to Southaven, Olive Branch, Horn Lake, Oxford, Tupelo, and the northern part of the state, and across the Delta to Greenville, Clarksdale, Cleveland, Greenwood, and Indianola. We also represent clients in Meridian, Starkville, Columbus, Vicksburg, and Yazoo City. We also serve injured people in Louisiana, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Shreveport, and a patient who traveled for specialized care across a state line may need counsel who can work in both.
Talk With a Mississippi Medical Malpractice Attorney Today
If you believe a doctor, hospital, or other provider caused you or a family member serious harm, speak with a Mississippi medical malpractice attorney before the filing deadline shortens your options. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, consultations are free, we advance the costs of the case, and you owe no fee unless we recover for you. Call Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC to talk through what happened and learn whether you have a claim worth pursuing.
