Florida Medical Malpractice Research
Version 2 · October 14, 2026
| Brief No.: | S-002 (Sample) |
| Version: | 2, issued October 14, 2026 |
| Prepared by: | Impleader |
1. Facts Used for Matching
These facts came with the order. Impleader did not verify them and used them only to choose the comparable cases.
- An adult patient went to a hospital emergency department with severe back pain.
- The patient was diagnosed with a muscle strain and sent home.
- The patient returned days later with leg weakness. An MRI showed a spinal epidural abscess.
- The patient had emergency surgery and has permanent leg weakness and bladder dysfunction.
- The defendants are the emergency physician, the physicians' group and the hospital. Mediation is scheduled.
2. Comparable Cases
Three Brevard County cases match these facts. In each case an adult was sent home from an emergency department with back or neck pain, and the abscess was found on a later visit. Each patient survived with permanent paralysis. All three cases settled.
| Case | Case No. | Facts in brief | Injury | Filed | Closed | Paid1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Neck pain. Sent home; abscess found the next day. | Paralysis of both legs | May 2019 | Dec 2019 | $475,000 | |
| B | Back pain. Sent home twice; abscess found on the third visit. | Partial paralysis | Jun 2019 | Jan 2024 | $212,500 | |
| C | Back pain. Sent home twice; MRI result not passed on. | Partial paralysis of both legs | Jul 2022 | Aug 2023 | $698,000 |
Sources: Complaints purchased from the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Brevard County; Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), Professional Liability Closed Claim data.
1 Total of the payments that the defendants' insurers reported to OIR. If a defendant's insurer does not report to OIR, there is no record of that payment, so a case may have settled for more. "Closed" is the date of the last payment record. Details are in Appendix A.
3. Case Summaries
The facts below are taken from each plaintiff's complaint. They are allegations, not findings.
In January 2018 a 33-year-old man went to the emergency department with severe neck pain. He was x-rayed, given a muscle relaxant and sent home with a diagnosis of acute neck pain. He came back the next morning, and an MRI showed an epidural abscess in his neck. He was transferred to a hospital in Orlando, where his legs weakened overnight. He had emergency spine surgery the next morning. He has no movement or feeling in his legs and uses a wheelchair.
- Defendants
- Emergency physician; nurse practitioner; their physicians' group; the Brevard hospital; the Orlando hospital and two of its physicians.
- Amount paid
- $475,000. Emergency physician $250,000; nurse practitioner $225,000. Closed December 10, 2019.
- Sources
- First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 13–31 (filed Nov. 21, 2019); OIR records and .
In August 2017 a woman went to the emergency department with mid-back pain. She was sent home with muscle relaxants, pain medication and a steroid. Two days later she came back with worse pain. Her blood work showed an elevated white count, but she was sent home again the same day. On her third visit she had neurological symptoms, and a spinal epidural abscess was found. She had emergency surgery and has permanent numbness and partial paralysis.
- Defendants
- Emergency physician; the physicians' group; the hospital.
- Amount paid
- $212,500. Hospital $125,000 (closed June 15, 2023); physicians' group $87,500 (closed January 2, 2024). No payment record for the emergency physician.
- Sources
- Complaint (filed June 5, 2019); Second Amended Complaint ¶¶ 10–18 (filed Apr. 24, 2020); OIR records and .
In August 2020 a man with a history of staph bloodstream infection went to the emergency department twice for skin abscesses. He then went back twice with back pain running down his legs. On the second of those visits he had an elevated white count and trouble urinating, but he was diagnosed with back pain and sent home in a wheelchair. Five days later he returned with leg weakness and incontinence. His MRI was delayed overnight. According to the complaint, no one was told when the radiologist read it as an abscess. He had surgery that evening and remains partly paralyzed in both legs.
- Defendants
- Emergency physician; radiologist; their physicians' group; two hospital physicians and their group; neurosurgeon.
- Amount paid
- $698,000. Radiologist $250,000, physicians' group $250,000 and emergency physician $99,000 (closed August 7, 2023); neurosurgeon $99,000 (closed January 10, 2023). No payment record for the two hospital physicians or their group.
- Sources
- Complaint ¶¶ 22–35 (filed July 5, 2022); OIR records , , and .
4. Use of This Brief
This brief compares public records. It is not a valuation, a prediction or legal advice. Payment information is reported by insurers to the State of Florida. Impleader does not audit it and is not responsible for errors in it. The appendices give the full payment records (A), data limitations (B), how the cases were chosen (C), the sources (D) and how to check them yourself (E).
Appendix A. Payment Records
Each row is one closed-claim record reported to OIR. Amounts are as reported and are not adjusted for inflation. "Defense cost" is the loss adjustment expense the insurer reported.
| Insured (role in suit) | Insurer | Paid | Closed | Defense cost | Stage, as coded by insurer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case A. No. | |||||
| Emergency physician | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $250,000 | 12/10/2019 | $36,053 | After suit filed |
| Nurse practitioner | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $225,000 | 12/10/2019 | $36,053 | After suit filed |
| No record found: the physicians' group, the Brevard hospital, or the Orlando hospital and its two physicians. | |||||
| Case B. No. | |||||
| Hospital | (self-insurer) | $125,000 | 6/15/2023 | $121,090 | After suit filed |
| Physicians' group | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $87,500 | 1/2/2024 | $120,874 | Before suit (see App. B, item 4) |
| No record found: the emergency physician. | |||||
| Case C. No. | |||||
| Radiologist | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $250,000 | 8/7/2023 | $24,378 | Before suit (see App. B, item 4) |
| Emergency physician | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $99,000 | 8/7/2023 | $24,377 | Before suit (see App. B, item 4) |
| Neurosurgeon | Aspen American Insurance Co. | $99,000 | 1/10/2023 | $16,085 | After suit filed |
| Physicians' group2 | MAG Mutual Insurance Co. | $250,000 | 8/7/2023 | $0 | Before suit (see App. B, item 4) |
| No record found: the two hospital physicians or their group. | |||||
Source: OIR Professional Liability Closed Claim data, quarterly files 2019 Q4, 2023 Q1–Q3 and 2024 Q1.
2 This record is filed under a shortened form of the group's name. It is matched to the group because it carries this case number, the same MAG Mutual policy number as the radiologist and emergency physician records (both employed by the group), and the same closing date.
Appendix B. Data Limitations
- Insurers report payments by insured, not by lawsuit. Every case in this brief has at least one defendant with no payment record.
- The case facts come from the complaints. All three cases settled, and none was tried.
- Docket events, including mediation dates, were not reviewed for this sample.
- OIR records contain errors. They are reported as filed and noted here. In Case C, three records give an injury date of August 2021, but the events took place in August 2020. Four records are coded as settled before suit, but each closed after the suit was filed. The physicians' group record in Case C shows no defense cost. In Case A, both records show the same defense cost, which may be one figure reported twice.
- Case A's filing date (May 24, 2019) is the date reported to OIR. The copy on file is the First Amended Complaint, filed November 21, 2019.
- Three cases from one county are a set for comparison, not a statistical sample.
Appendix C. Case Selection
| Step | Cases | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Records searched | 225 | Brevard County medical malpractice suits with a complaint copy from the Clerk and a case-number match to OIR records |
| Abscess mentioned | 7 | The complaint mentions a spinal epidural abscess |
| Excluded: followed surgery | 2 | The abscess developed after an operation (; ) |
| Excluded: patient died | 2 | Emergency department cases in which the patient died; both closed with no payment (; ) |
| Selected | 3 | Emergency department case; patient survived with permanent paralysis |
The three selected cases differ in some respects. In Case A, the abscess was found on the second visit, and the paralysis developed after the patient was moved to another hospital. In Cases B and C, the patient was sent home twice with back pain. In Case A, only individual clinicians paid. In Case B, only the hospital and the physicians' group paid. In Case C, both the clinicians and their group paid.
Appendix D. Sources
| Case | Document | Identifier | Cited for |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | First Amended Complaint, filed 11/21/2019, 17 pp. | Filing No. | ¶¶ 4–12, 13–31, 37, 42 |
| A | OIR closed-claim records, 2019 Q4 | MPLID , | Payments |
| B | Complaint, filed 6/5/2019, 12 pp. | Filing No. | Filing date; ¶¶ 10–13 |
| B | Motion for leave with Second Amended Complaint, filed 4/24/2020, 17 pp. | Filing No. | ¶¶ 4–8, 10–14, 18 |
| B | OIR closed-claim records, 2023 Q2 and 2024 Q1 | MPLID , | Payments |
| C | Complaint, filed 7/5/2022, 16 pp. | Filing No. | ¶¶ 7–21, 22–35, 39, 44 |
| C | OIR closed-claim records, 2023 Q1 and Q3 | MPLID , , , | Payments |
Complaint copies were purchased from the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Brevard County, and received October 9, 2026. OIR records are cited by their record number (MPLID). All sources were re-checked on October 12, 2026.
Appendix E. How to Check This Brief
Every case and payment in this brief can be checked from public sources. Case numbers and record numbers are in Appendix D. Portal layouts change, so use these steps as a guide.
- Find the case. The Brevard County Clerk of Court offers a public court records search, the Brevard Electronic Court Application, through the “Case Search” page at brevardclerk.us/departments/public-records/case-search/. Accept the clerk's disclaimer, choose the general public search, and enter the case number. A Brevard case number reads 05 (Brevard County), the filing year, CA (civil), then a six-digit sequence number. The docket lists the filings, including the complaint and its filing date.
- Read the complaint. The facts in Section 3 are cited to paragraph numbers in the complaint named in Appendix D. The clerk sells copies of court documents; the portal may also show them. Some pages may be unavailable online.
- Find the insurer payment records. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) publishes a searchable closed-claim database at plcrsearch.floir.gov. Choose the medical malpractice (MPL) category, enter the case number in the “Court Case Number” field, and select the fields to display. The record for each payment shows the insurer, the amounts paid and the closing date, which can be compared with Table A-1.
- Compare. Check the amounts, dates and insurers against Table A-1, and the facts against Section 3. Appendix B lists the errors and gaps already found in the OIR records.
Statement on Insurer-Reported Data
Payment, stage, cost and date information comes from the closed-claim reports that insurers and self-insurers file with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Impleader does not create or audit those reports. Impleader is not liable for errors or omissions in OIR data, or for any comparison or link that depends on an OIR record that turns out to be incorrect. Conflicts between OIR records and court records are noted.