Malpractice In Nursing: Examples & How To Prove It (2026)

Understanding Med Mal for Nurses

You probably think of doctors when you think of medical malpractice claims. However, medical malpractice lawyers also see cases involving hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and nurses. When nurses fail to provide reasonably competent and skilled care, the patient has the right to pursue a medical malpractice claim.

Malpractice in nursing can cause significant losses for the victim, from corrective medical treatment to a prolonged recovery from their original condition. In the worst cases, malpractice can even result in fatalities. It’s important for every patient to understand how to recognize nursing malpractice and what actions to take following it.

What Is Malpractice in Nursing?

Medical malpractice is a form of professional negligence. Negligence requires proof of the following four elements:

• Duty of care, which is established by the relationship between the parties
• Breach of duty when the healthcare provider fails to provide reasonable care
• Losses resulting from a physical or emotional injury to the patient
• A causal link between the breach and the damages

Nurses have an ethical duty to protect and promote a patient’s health. This nurse-patient relationship requires nurses to be accountable for the decisions they make and the treatment they provide. They must also meet the laws, regulations, and standards of care of their state.

Proving Med Mal for Nurses

A nurse breaches their legal duties by failing to provide reasonably competent and skilled nursing services. The responsibilities of millions of nurses reach almost every aspect of healthcare, including:

• Assessing patients and prioritizing their care
• Creating and maintaining accurate records
• Administering medication
• Reporting to doctors
• Educating patients about their conditions
• Communicating with patients on behalf of doctors
• Operating medical equipment
• Maintaining sterile conditions

The victim will need to demonstrate that a nurse breached this duty and that the breach caused them to suffer harm.

Additionally, a patient has to prove a causal link with two forms of evidence. They must establish that the nurse’s actions were a cause-in-fact of the patient’s injury. This means the nurse’s breach of duty fell in the sequence of events that resulted in harm to the victim.

The patient must also demonstrate the nurse’s breach was a proximate cause of the injury. Proximate cause is a legal concept intended to guarantee that people are only held liable for actions that could foreseeably lead to an injury.

The nurse does not need to foresee the exact harm that befell the patient. Instead, their action must be one that could logically and naturally expose a patient to injury or death.

Common Causes of Nursing Malpractice

Medical malpractice involving nurses often occurs as a result of overworked staff. There is a serious nursing shortage in the country, which means that the ones who are currently working are usually multitasking. This can lead to many preventable errors.

Burnout is another problem among nurses. It can happen due to unmanaged workplace stress, which frequently results in exhaustion and numbness. This makes a nurse less careful and more likely to hurriedly finish their shift instead of providing the accepted standard of care. Almost two-thirds of nurses experience burnout.

Examples of Malpractice in Nursing

Not every mistake constitutes malpractice. Instead, malpractice only arises from unreasonable mistakes. This means the nurse knew or should have known that their actions or omissions would expose the patient to injury or death.

Nursing malpractice can take many forms, including the following examples:

Mixed-Up Records

Your medical records contain information essential to safe and effective medical care, such as test results and allergies. When a nurse makes a mistake in recording or retrieving this information, your medical team may commit a grave error as a result.

Unskilled Treatment

Nursing requires skill. They are often responsible for performing minor procedures, preparing you for treatment, and safeguarding you from infections. A lack of skill can arise from intoxication, old age, inadequate training or insufficient supervision.

Drug Administration Errors

One of a nurse’s most critical tasks is to administer medication and monitor the patient afterward. When a nurse carelessly performs either of these tasks, the patient might receive the wrong medication or an incorrect dose. They might also have a severe reaction to the medication that the nurse fails to observe or counteract.

Communication Breakdowns

Nurses serve as an important conduit among doctors, patients, nursing assistants, laboratories and pharmacies. When a nurse fails to deliver a necessary message to the right party, the patient suffers.

Claims Involving Med Mal for Nurses

When you meet with a medical malpractice lawyer to prepare a malpractice claim, they have a lot of work to do. The lawyer begins by analyzing your situation to determine whether the nursing error you experienced rises to the level of malpractice.

If the lawyer determines you have a case, they will also assess its value. You can recover compensation for both economic and non-economic losses in a malpractice case.

Economic losses include hard costs like past and future medical expenses and lost income. Non-economic losses account for all the ways your injuries or your child's injuries have reduced your quality of life. Examples of these losses include pain, suffering and disability.

The lawyer must identify the party liable for the nurse’s conduct. Nurses are usually employed by a hospital, clinic, nursing home, or service. These businesses are responsible for the negligence of their nurses that happens in the course of their job duties. This doctrine, called respondeat superior, allows you to sue the business instead of—or in addition to—the nurse.

This option may be critical because the business often has medical malpractice insurance. If you win your claim for a tort in nursing, the insurer will pay your losses.
In addition to pursuing compensation, patients may also consider filing a complaint with the state’s medical board. This step allows authorities to investigate the nurse’s actions and potentially take disciplinary measures, such as issuing fines or suspending their license, which can reinforce your malpractice claim.

What Damages Can You Recover in a Nursing Malpractice Case?

In a nursing malpractice case, you can recover economic damages. These damages can address your medical expenses, including any future care that you will need. If the injury kept you from working and you lost income, you can also receive compensation for these lost wages. Similarly, if you can’t return to work, you can be compensated for your loss of earning potential.

In instances when a loved one dies because of malpractice, you can receive compensation for funeral expenses. Economic damages can cover any services that your loved one provided, such as childcare, that you’ll now have to hire someone to do as well.

On the other hand, non-economic damages address losses that are more difficult to quantify. These include the physical and emotional distress you experienced, as well as your loss of enjoyment of life.

Who Can Be Held Liable in Nursing Malpractice Cases?

After suffering injuries because of a nurse’s malpractice, you may be able to hold that provider liable, but other parties could be responsible, too. For instance, you could file against the hospital or other facility in which the nurse is employed due to vicarious liability laws, which hold the principal responsible for the actions of their agents.

You may also be able to file a claim against the supervising doctor. If they were present and failed to prevent the nurse’s mistake or if they were not otherwise supervising treatment as they needed to be, then they could be held responsible, too.

How Long Do You Have to File a Nursing Malpractice Lawsuit?

The statute of limitations for medical malpractice varies from state to state. It’s typically between one to three years, but there could be exceptions if you didn’t discover the injury until later. Additionally, if the nurse tried to conceal the harm they caused, you will usually be given an extension of the timeline.

Learn More About Med Mal for Nurses From ConsumerShield

Medical errors constitute one of the most common causes of death in the U.S. Although nurses are not solely responsible for all of these mistakes, they have a level of interaction with patients that can expose them to liability for injuring patients.

When you suffer an injury while receiving medical care, you need a lawyer to help you determine your rights. ConsumerShield helps injured patients learn about the law and connect with a lawyer. Contact us for a free case evaluation today.