Medical Malpractice Claims against a NYC Municipal Hospital: "What is a Notice of Claim?"

First, here's a list of municipal hospitals and health care facilities in the New York City metropolitan area:

Staten Island
Sea View
Mariner's Harbor
Stapleton

If you suffered an injury at any one of these hospitals or health care facilities, you cannot sue them directly. There's a very important procedure you must follow.

First, you must file a timely notice of claim. This is a document that identifies you as the person bringing the claim. You must also identify which hospital or health care facility you believe caused you harm. You must then set forth the basis for your claim and explain with as many specifics as possible what the hospital and their staff did to cause you injury.

You must then explain in detail all of your injuries that you suffered as a result of the hospital's wrongdoing.

The notice of claim puts the responsible legal entity on notice of an upcoming lawsuit. The legal entity responsible for all the municipal hospitals in the 5 boroughs of New York City is known as New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation, also known as NYCHHC.

The law requires that before a lawsuit if filed against NYCHHC, that NYCHHC be put on notice about what happened. There are strict guidelines about what information must be included in a Notice of Claim and when it must be filed. In addition, there are strict procedures about where and how this Notice of Claim must be filed.

If you plan on filing this key document on your own, you must be very careful and follow every instruction carefully. The better practice is to have an experienced NY medical malpractice attorney file it for you. If you mess up the filing of this crucial document, you will have many headaches and technical problems down the road.