A nurse may spend more time with a hospital patient than any other member of the medical team. That position carries serious responsibility. When a nurse overlooks a dangerous change, gives the wrong medication, or fails to follow a safety order, the consequences can extend far beyond a temporary setback.
Nursing malpractice may leave a patient facing another surgery, permanent limitations, or a medical crisis that timely care could have prevented.
Families are often left trying to piece together what occurred from unfamiliar chart entries and incomplete explanations. James Horne Law PA helps Floridians examine the care they or their loved ones received and determine whether a nurse’s actions fell below professional standards.
James “Jay” Horne has handled medical negligence cases through every stage of litigation and prepares each case to withstand challenges from hospitals, insurers, and their defense teams.
Contact our Florida medical malpractice law firm to learn more about your legal options.
What Is Nurse Malpractice?
Under Florida law, nursing malpractice occurs when a nurse provides care that falls below the level a reasonably careful nurse would provide under the circumstances and that failure causes injury or death. A poor outcome alone is not enough. The patient must connect the nurse’s act or omission to the harm.
Florida treats nurses licensed under the Nurse Practice Act as healthcare providers for purposes of medical malpractice. State law describes professional nursing as including:
- Patient observation,
- Assessment,
- Care planning,
- Intervention,
- Evaluation,
- Illness prevention, and
- Medication administration.
A nurse may breach the standard of care by performing an unsafe act or failing to act when the patient’s condition requires a response.
What Is the Difference Between a Mistake and Nursing Negligence?
A mistake becomes legally actionable only when it falls below the professional standard of care and causes measurable harm. Nurses work in fast-moving settings, and the law does not treat every charting error, delayed task, or imperfect decision as malpractice.
For example, a nurse may scan the wrong medication but catch the mismatch before giving it. That near miss may require an internal review, but it did not injure the patient. The analysis changes when a nurse ignores an allergy alert, gives the drug anyway, and causes anaphylaxis.
The issue is not simply that an error occurred. The question is whether a reasonably prudent nurse should have acted differently and whether proper care would have probably prevented the injury.
Florida places the burden on the claimant to prove both the breach of the professional standard and the connection between that breach and the resulting harm.
What Are Some Examples of Nursing Malpractice?
Nurses are responsible for carrying out medical orders, monitoring patients, and responding when a patient’s condition changes. When they fail to perform those duties safely, the result may support a malpractice claim.
The following examples show the types of nursing negligence claims we handle.
Medication Errors
Nurses must confirm the patient, medication, dose, route, timing, and relevant warnings before administering a drug. Errors may involve the wrong medication, a decimal-point mistake, a known allergy, or failure to monitor the patient after giving a high-risk drug.
Consider a postoperative patient whose physician orders a low dose of an anticoagulant. A nurse misreads the order, administers 10 times the intended dose, and fails to notify the physician after discovering the discrepancy. The patient develops internal bleeding and needs emergency surgery.
The claim would focus on the administration of the incorrect medication dosage, the delayed response, and whether prompt treatment would have limited the bleeding.
Patient Falls
A fall may support a claim when the care team identifies a patient as high risk but does not follow ordered precautions. Those precautions may include assistance with walking, a bed alarm, nonslip footwear, or closer observation.
Suppose an older patient receives a sedating medication after hip surgery and has orders requiring assistance with bathroom use. The patient repeatedly presses the call button, but no one responds. The patient attempts to stand alone, falls, and fractures the other hip.
An investigation could compare the fall-risk plan with the staffing records, call-light data, and care actually provided.
Ignored Warning Signs
Nurses are often the first members of the care team to see dangerous changes in blood pressure, heart rate, mental status, breathing, pain, or urine output. They must recognize concerning patterns and alert the appropriate provider when the patient needs further evaluation.
For example, a patient recovering from abdominal surgery becomes confused, pale, and increasingly weak. The records show a rising heart rate and falling blood pressure, but the nurse attributes the symptoms to anxiety and does not contact the surgeon. Hours later, the patient is found to have significant internal bleeding.
A claim may turn on when the warning signs became clear and whether earlier intervention would have changed the outcome.
Failure to Monitor
Monitoring requires more than recording numbers in a chart. A nurse may need to reassess the patient after medication, respond to alarms, follow ordered observation intervals, and report signs that treatment is not working.
A patient with sleep apnea receives an opioid after surgery and has an order for continuous oxygen monitoring. The alarm sounds repeatedly, but a nurse silences it without evaluating the patient or contacting the physician. The patient later suffers respiratory arrest and brain injury.
Alarm data, medication timing, and missing assessments may show whether the delay was preventable.
Can a Nurse Be Held Responsible for Their Negligence?
Yes. Florida’s medical malpractice framework includes registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and advanced practice registered nurses. A nurse may be named when their conduct departed from the applicable standard and caused harm.
The hospital or another employer may also bear responsibility when the nurse was acting within the scope of employment. A facility may face a separate claim for failures involving staffing, supervision, training, risk management, or enforcement of patient-safety procedures. Florida law specifically requires hospitals and similar facilities to maintain risk-management systems and supervise personnel with due care.
A nursing negligence investigation may therefore involve the following:
- An individual nurse,
- The Hospital,
- A staffing agency,
- A home health company, or
- Another entity that is involved in the care.
Compensation often comes through professional liability coverage or a facility’s self-insurance rather than directly from the nurse. The responsible parties and available coverage depend on the employment relationships and facts.
How Do I File a Nursing Malpractice Claim?
A Florida claim does not begin with an ordinary lawsuit filed in court immediately. Florida law requires an investigation and a presuit process before the case can move forward.
Expert Review and Reasonable-Grounds Certification
Before sending a notice of intent, the claimant must investigate whether there are reasonable grounds to believe a named provider was negligent and caused injury. A qualified medical expert must provide a verified written opinion supporting those grounds. The attorney filing the case must also conduct a reasonable investigation and have a good-faith basis for the claim.
The review may include:
- Nursing notes,
- Medication administration records,
- Vital-sign flowsheets,
- Physician orders,
- Alarm data,
- Electronic audit trails,
- Staffing assignments,
- Hospital policies, and
- Later treatment records.
The expert’s opinion must address the conduct at issue rather than merely state that the patient experienced a bad outcome.
Presuit Notice
After completing the investigation, the claimant must send each prospective defendant a formal notice of intent to initiate medical negligence litigation through an approved, verifiable method. The notice generally includes supporting information, records relied upon by the expert, and an authorization to release relevant health information.
The nurse, hospital, insurer, or other recipient then has a 90-day screening period to conduct an investigation. The prospective defendant may reject the claim, make a settlement offer, or offer arbitration on the amount of damages.
Statute of Limitations
Florida generally requires a medical malpractice action to begin within two years of the incident or within two years of when the injury was discovered or should have been discovered through reasonable diligence.
Florida also generally sets a four-year maximum deadline measured from the date the negligence occurred, even if you discovered the injury later. Limited exceptions may apply when fraud, concealment, or intentional misrepresentation kept you from learning what happened, and different rules may apply to claims involving young children.
If you fail to file by the deadline, you generally cannot recover compensation. So it’s imperative to contact a nursing malpractice lawyer as soon as possible.
Can I Hold Nurses in the Emergency Room Responsible?
Yes, but Florida may apply a higher liability standard to care provided during a true hospital emergency. For emergency medical services related to the original emergency and provided before the patient is stabilized, the patient may need to prove “reckless disregard” rather than ordinary negligence.
“Reckless disregard” means the nurse knew, or should have known, that their conduct created a serious and unreasonable danger to the patient’s life or health. It requires more than an ordinary mistake or a momentary lapse in judgment. The conduct must show that the nurse ignored a risk that was far greater than the type of carelessness involved in a typical negligence claim.
For example, a nurse who repeatedly ignores dangerously low oxygen readings, worsening chest pain, and abnormal vital signs without alerting a physician may meet this standard. Those are clear signs that the patient could be facing a life-threatening emergency.
Continuing to ignore the patient may amount to reckless disregard because the nurse knew or should have known that failing to act would expose the patient to a severe and immediate risk of harm.
Once the patient is stabilized and able to receive nonemergency treatment, the higher emergency standard generally no longer applies. The ordinary professional standard usually governs later nursing care.
What Should I Do If I Suspect My Injuries or My Loved One’s Injuries Were Caused by Nursing Malpractice?
Make sure the patient receives appropriate medical care before focusing on a potential claim. A second medical provider may need to evaluate worsening symptoms, treat complications, or correct an earlier error. Once the patient is safe, take steps to preserve information that may help explain what happened.
- Get follow-up treatment. Tell the new provider about the symptoms, when they began, and what care the patient previously received.
- Request the medical records. Formally request all of your medical records from the institutions and providers for whom you were a patient.
- Write down what you remember. Record the names of the nurses involved, the symptoms reported, the responses you received, and the approximate time of each event.
- Keep related documents and photographs. Save medication bottles, patient portal messages, bills, discharge paperwork, photographs of visible injuries, and any written communication with the hospital or facility.
Contact a Florida medical malpractice lawyer at James Horne Law PA promptly. We can obtain the complete records, identify the responsible providers, arrange the required medical review, and begin Florida’s presuit process before the filing deadline expires.
Hold Negligent Nursing Care Accountable
You deserve a clear assessment of whether the care you or your loved one received may support a nurse malpractice claim. Jay brings almost 15 years of litigation experience and has recovered millions of dollars for injured clients throughout his career.
He is candid with every person who contacts the firm. He will explain the strengths and weaknesses of the case and tell you honestly which path forward is best. When James Horne Law PA accepts a case, we prepare to hold the responsible providers and healthcare facilities accountable.
You do not pay any no upfront costs or attorney fees. We are paid attorney’s fees only if we recover compensation for you.
Contact James Horne Law PA today for a free case review.
Legal References Used to Inform This Page
To ensure the accuracy and clarity of this page, we referenced official legal and other resources during the content development process:
- Limitations other than for the recovery of real property, Fla. Stat. § 95.11.
- Good Samaritan Act, Fla. Stat. § 768.13.
- Notice before filing action for medical negligence, Fla. Stat. § 766.106.
- Presuit investigation of medical negligence claims and defenses by prospective parties, Fla. Stat. § 766.203.
- Nurse Practice Act, Fla. Stat. Chapter 464.
- Definitions, Fla. Stat. § 766.202.
- Definitions, Fla. Stat. § 464.003.
- Liability of health care facilities, Fla. Stat. § 766.110.
James “Jay” Horne is an AV-Preeminent rated aggressive litigation attorney, who focuses his practice on medical malpractice, personal injury and family law matters. He has successfully represented clients from case inception through trial and appeals in state and federal court. Jay was born and raised on the Suncoast. He is married and proud father to a one year old son. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, golfing and distance running during the cool months.