Suing NYU Langone for Surgical Negligence: Case Guide for NY Patients

About NYU Langone Health

NYU Langone Health is a major academic medical center operating multiple hospitals and facilities throughout New York City:

• NYU Langone Medical Center / Tisch Hospital (Midtown Manhattan) — the flagship hospital, a Level I trauma center with comprehensive surgical specialties.
• NYU Langone Kimmel Pavilion (Midtown Manhattan) — adjacent to Tisch Hospital, with additional surgical and specialty services.
• NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island (Mineola, Nassau County) — formerly NYU Winthrop, a major suburban hospital with comprehensive surgical services. [Link to: /surgical-errors/buffalo]
• NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn (Sunset Park, Brooklyn) — formerly NYU Langone Cobble Hill.
• NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital (Manhattan) — specializing in orthopedic surgery.
• NYU Langone Ambulatory Surgery Centers — multiple locations throughout NYC for outpatient surgery.
• Perlmutter Cancer Center — NCI-designated cancer center with surgical oncology programs.
• Hassenfeld Children's Hospital — pediatric surgery.

Common Surgical Errors at NYU Langone

Surgical errors that may support a malpractice claim against NYU Langone include:

• Wrong-site surgery: Operating on the wrong body part or side. [Link to: /medical-malpractice/wrong-site-surgery]
• Retained surgical objects: Leaving sponges, instruments, or other items inside the patient. [Link to: /medical-malpractice/retained-surgical-object]
• Organ or bowel perforation: Accidental injury to adjacent organs — particularly in laparoscopic procedures. [Link to: /surgical-errors/laparoscopic-bowel-perforation]
• Nerve damage: Injury to nerves causing paralysis, numbness, or chronic pain. [Link to: /surgical-errors/nerve-damage]
• Orthopedic surgery errors: Given NYU Langone's Orthopedic Hospital, errors in joint replacement, spine surgery, and sports medicine are potential areas. [Link to: /surgical-errors/orthopedic-surgery-malpractice]
• Cardiac surgery errors: Errors during heart surgery. [Link to: /surgical-errors/cardiac-surgery-malpractice]
• Neurosurgery errors: Errors during brain or spinal surgery. [Link to: /surgical-errors/neurosurgery-malpractice]
• Robotic surgery errors: Errors during da Vinci robotic surgery — including surgeon inexperience or equipment malfunction. [Link to: /surgical-errors/robotic-surgery-malpractice]
• Anesthesia errors. [Link to: /medical-malpractice/anesthesia-error]
• Post-operative bleeding and hemorrhage. [Link to: /surgical-errors/post-operative-hemorrhage]
• Surgical site infections.

Teaching Hospital Liability and Resident Supervision

As a major academic medical center affiliated with NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Langone trains surgical residents and fellows. This creates the important liability question: who actually performed your surgery?

In teaching hospitals, surgical procedures are often performed by residents under attending supervision. The attending surgeon may or may not be present for all portions of the surgery. Under New York law and ACGME regulations, attending surgeons must provide appropriate supervision. If a surgical error occurs because of inadequate supervision, both the resident and the attending (and the hospital) may be liable. [Link to: /surgical-errors/resident-supervision]

Concurrent surgeries — where an attending surgeon supervises two surgeries simultaneously — is a significant issue at large academic medical centers. If your attending surgeon was running two ORs and a resident committed an error during the unsupervised portion, this may constitute negligent supervision. [Link to: /surgical-errors/concurrent-surgery]

Your attorney will review the operative records to determine who was present during each portion of the surgery.

Building a Surgical Error Case Against NYU Langone

To build a successful surgical error case against NYU Langone, MDLaw Firm will:

1. Obtain complete medical records: Pre-operative records, operative reports, anesthesia records, nursing notes, post-operative records, imaging studies, and pathology reports. NYU Langone uses the Epic electronic medical record system.

2. Review the operative report: Expert review of the dictated operative report for discrepancies, omissions, or signs of substandard care.

3. Engage surgical experts: Board-certified surgeons in the relevant specialty review the records and provide opinions on the standard of care and causation.

4. Identify all liable parties: The surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses, residents, attending physicians, and NYU Langone as the hospital corporation.

5. Establish causation and damages: Expert testimony linking the surgical error to the injury, and documentation of all medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and future care needs.

6. File the lawsuit with a certificate of merit: Under CPLR § 3012-a.

New York Statute of Limitations

Under CPLR § 214-a, the statute of limitations is 2.5 years from the date of the surgery. The continuous treatment doctrine may extend the deadline if you continued receiving treatment from the same surgeon for the same condition. The foreign object exception gives you 1 year from discovery of a retained surgical object. NYU Langone is a private hospital system — the municipal Notice of Claim requirement does not apply. [Link to: /surgical-errors/statute-of-limitations]

Frequently Asked Questions

The value of a medical malpractice case in New York depends on several factors, including the severity of the injury, the strength of liability evidence, and the economic and non-economic damages involved. New York is one of the few states with no caps on medical malpractice damages, meaning there is no artificial limit on what you can recover. Below are typical settlement ranges based on injury severity.