Plastic Surgery Malpractice Lawyer

Case example

A 42-year-old woman walks into a Boca Raton medspa for lip filler. The injector — a nurse working under “physician supervision” — injects filler directly into an artery. Within hours, the tissue in her upper lip begins to die. She ends up in the ER with permanent scarring and a $60,000 reconstructive surgery bill. The medspa’s Instagram shows hundreds of before-and-after photos. Their consent form says “complications are rare.”

That’s not a rare complication. That’s vascular occlusion — a known risk that requires immediate recognition and reversal with hyaluronidase. The question in a malpractice case isn’t whether the complication happened. It’s whether the provider had the training to avoid it, recognize it, and treat it. And whether anyone at that medspa was actually qualified to inject fillers in the first place.

Florida doesn’t have a separate legal framework for cosmetic surgery malpractice. These cases fall under the state’s general medical malpractice laws in Chapter 766 of the Florida Statutes. That means the same pre-suit procedures, expert requirements, and proof standards apply whether you’re suing over a botched knee replacement or a Brazilian butt lift that went wrong. But the practical realities of cosmetic surgery cases — unregulated medspas, unqualified injectors, patients who paid cash and have no insurance coverage for complications — make these cases harder to win than most people expect.

What counts as malpractice in plastic surgery cases

Under Florida Statute § 766.102, a healthcare provider is liable for medical negligence if they breach the prevailing professional standard of care and that breach causes injury. The statute defines the standard as “that level of care, skill, and treatment which, in light of all relevant surrounding circumstances, is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent similar health care providers.”

In plastic surgery, that means asking what a reasonably prudent plastic surgeon — or whatever type of provider performed the procedure — would have done in the same situation. Not what the best surgeon in Miami would have done. Not what a textbook says. What a competent practitioner in the same specialty would consider acceptable.

Example: a board-certified plastic surgeon performs a facelift and the patient develops a hematoma — a collection of blood under the skin. Hematomas happen and are a known risk disclosed in a properly drafted consent form. But if the surgeon ignored clear signs of post-op bleeding, didn’t respond to the patient’s calls about severe swelling and pain, and the hematoma expanded to the point of causing permanent tissue damage and facial asymmetry, that’s likely malpractice. The issue isn’t the hematoma itself; it’s the failure to monitor and intervene.

Florida law treats both cosmetic and reconstructive surgery the same way. A breast augmentation is held to the same negligence standard as a post-mastectomy reconstruction. The fact that a procedure was elective doesn’t lower the standard of care or limit your right to sue.

The cases that actually get filed

Surgical errors are the most straightforward claims:

Wrong-site surgery — operating on the wrong breast, the wrong side of the nose, the wrong eyelid — is almost always indefensible.
Excessive removal of tissue, like overly aggressive liposuction that perforates the abdominal wall or removes so much fat that it causes contour deformities.

Nerve damage occurs more often than patients realize. Examples include:

A facelift that severs the facial nerve and leaves permanent drooping.
A rhinoplasty that damages the olfactory nerve causing loss of smell.
A tummy tuck that injures the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve leaving the thigh numb for life.

These injuries are sometimes unavoidable, but they’re malpractice if they result from poor technique or failure to follow accepted surgical approaches.

Anesthesia and sedation errors can be fatal. Florida has seen deaths from office-based cosmetic procedures where patients were over-sedated, inadequately monitored, or given anesthesia by someone unqualified to manage an airway emergency. The state has tightened office surgery rules repeatedly in response to deaths from Brazilian butt lifts and high-volume liposuction, but enforcement is inconsistent and patients still die in strip-mall surgery centers that have no business performing procedures under general anesthesia.

Informed consent failures are harder to win but still viable. If a surgeon performs a procedure and never told you about the risk of the exact complication you suffered, you may have a claim even if the surgery itself was performed competently. Florida Statute § 766.103 requires providers to explain the nature of the procedure, material risks, reasonable alternatives, and the likelihood of success. In cosmetic surgery, “material risks” includes scarring, asymmetry, nerve damage, infection, need for revision surgery, and in procedures like BBLs or liposuction, fat embolism and death.

Proving an informed consent claim often hinges on whether you would have refused the procedure if properly informed. Defense lawyers will argue you signed a consent form or paid out-of-pocket and would have done the procedure regardless. If the surgeon actively misrepresented risks — saying a BBL was “totally safe” or that “no one ever has complications with this” — you have a much stronger case.

Medspa cases are a legal minefield

A 2024 study published in PubMed reviewed 20 years of medspa litigation and found that every single plaintiff was a woman and almost every case involved a procedure performed by someone other than a physician. Common harms included laser burns, filler injections causing blindness, chemical peels that left permanent hyperpigmentation, and Botox injected by an esthetician with insufficient training.

Florida allows nurses, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners to perform certain cosmetic procedures under physician supervision. What “supervision” means is murky. Some medspas have a physician on-site; some have a physician who signs protocols but never actually sees patients; others have a physician whose name is on the license but who hasn’t set foot in the building in months.

If you’re injured at a medspa, figuring out who to sue is often the first challenge:

The injector who actually treated you may not have malpractice insurance.
The supervising physician may claim they had nothing to do with your care.
The corporate entity that owns the spa may argue it doesn’t “practice medicine.”

In practice, you often need to sue the individual provider, the supervising physician, and the corporate entity, and let discovery sort out who was actually responsible.

Scope-of-practice issues come up constantly. An esthetician performing laser hair removal may be within their license, while an esthetician injecting Sculptra is practicing medicine without a license. The line isn’t always clear, and patients have no way to know whether the person holding the syringe is legally allowed to do what they’re doing.

Florida’s pre-suit process will eat up months of your statute of limitations

You have two years from the date you discovered the malpractice — or should have discovered it with reasonable diligence — to file a lawsuit under Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(b). In most cases, that’s two years from the date of the bad outcome or the date another doctor tells you the prior treatment was substandard. There’s also a four-year statute of repose, meaning you generally can’t sue more than four years after the negligent act even if you didn’t discover it right away. Fraud or concealment can extend that to seven years, but you’ll need evidence the provider actively hid the malpractice.

Florida requires a lengthy pre-suit process under Chapter 766 before filing suit:

Your attorney must conduct a reasonable investigation to form a good-faith belief that malpractice occurred. That investigation must be supported by a written opinion from a medical expert — usually a plastic surgeon or other specialist in the same field. Florida Statute § 766.104 requires this.
Serve a Notice of Intent to Initiate Litigation on every prospective defendant. The notice must include an authorization for release of medical records that complies with Florida Statute § 766.1065. Once served, the statute of limitations is tolled and a 90-day investigation period begins.
During the 90 days, defendants can request an unsworn statement, conduct their own investigation, and demand additional records. At the end, they must either admit liability and make a settlement offer, propose arbitration, or reject the claim.
If rejected, you may file suit — but you must attach a corroborating medical expert affidavit to the complaint. That affidavit must meet Florida’s expert witness qualifications under § 766.202(6): the expert must be actively practicing or teaching in the same specialty or recently retired.

A recent appellate decision — Quintero v. Wells and North Florida OBGYN (Fifth District Court of Appeal, Jan. 2026) — illustrates the strictness of these requirements. The plaintiff’s expert affidavit addressed the physician’s negligence but said nothing about the corporate defendant or the informed consent claim. The court held that each defendant and each theory of liability must be specifically covered by the affidavit; claims not covered were dismissed.

Practically, you can’t wait until month 20 of your two-year deadline to consult a lawyer. The pre-suit investigation, expert review, Notice of Intent, 90-day tolling period, and preparation of the complaint and affidavit can easily consume six to nine months.

Who you can actually sue

The surgeon or provider who performed the procedure.
The facility, hospital, or surgery center under respondeat superior (employer liability for employees’ negligent acts).
The corporate entity that owns the practice for negligent hiring, credentialing, or supervision.
The supervising physician who may have delegated improperly or failed to supervise.
Anesthesiologists or CRNAs as separate defendants, particularly where anesthesia or airway management caused the complication.

Examples: if a nurse anesthetist over-sedates you and you suffer brain damage, both the nurse and the surgery center can be sued. If a medspa hires someone whose license is suspended, the corporate entity can be on the hook for putting an unqualified provider in a position to harm patients.

What you can recover in a Florida plastic surgery malpractice case

Economic damages: past and future medical expenses (corrective surgeries, hospitalizations, wound care, physical therapy, psychological counseling), lost income, reduced earning capacity, and out-of-pocket costs like medications, medical travel, and home modifications.
Non-economic damages: pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life. Florida’s prior statutory caps on non-economic damages (see § 766.118) were struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in Estate of McCall v. United States (2014) and North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan (2017). Currently, there is no statutory cap on non-economic damages in Florida medical malpractice cases.

This is significant in plastic surgery because disfigurement and emotional harm are often the primary injuries. A botched rhinoplasty that leaves a collapsed nasal bridge and difficulty breathing has economic damages, but the larger harm can be the emotional and psychological impact. Juries may award substantial damages for those harms.

If the patient dies — from a fat embolism after liposuction, an anesthesia complication, or an unrecognized post-op infection — the claim becomes a wrongful death action under Florida Statutes §§ 768.16 through 768.26. The personal representative files suit on behalf of survivors and the estate. Recoverable damages can include loss of support and services, loss of companionship, mental pain and suffering for certain family members, medical and funeral expenses, and lost earnings to the estate.

Proving the case means proving deviation from the standard of care

Bad outcomes happen even when the surgeon does everything right. Infection, scarring, and asymmetry can occur despite proper technique. The legal question is whether the complication occurred because the provider deviated from the standard of care. That requires expert testimony from an appropriate specialist.

You need a board-certified plastic surgeon — or the relevant specialist — to review records, explain the standard of care, and testify that the defendant fell short. Example: capsular contracture after breast augmentation is a known risk. But if an expert finds the surgeon used improper pocket dissection technique, failed to achieve adequate hemostasis, or placed the implant in a contaminated field, that supports a negligence claim.

The defense will often argue the patient failed to follow post-operative instructions. Florida follows a modified comparative negligence rule under § 768.81. If the jury finds the patient partly at fault, damages are reduced by the patient’s percentage of fault. Comparative fault is usually a minor issue but can be significant when there’s evidence the patient ignored explicit instructions that contributed to the bad outcome.

Why these cases are harder than most people expect

Litigation costs are high. You typically need multiple experts and extensive discovery — depositions of the surgeon, staff, anesthesia providers, and other treating physicians. Litigation costs of $50,000 to $100,000 before trial are common.
Attorneys are selective. If economic losses are minimal and damages are primarily cosmetic, the case may not justify the investment even with clear liability.
Juries are unpredictable. Some jurors may view elective procedures as assumed risk; others sympathize with disfigurement and award significant damages.
Insurance coverage may be inadequate. Many cosmetic practices and medspas carry minimal malpractice coverage or none at all. A large verdict against an underinsured defendant may not result in full recovery.

If you think you have a case, get records and move fast

Obtain copies of all medical records immediately: from the treating surgeon, any subsequent providers, the emergency room, infectious disease specialists, and any revision surgeons. Get signed consent forms and any messages (texts, emails, patient portal messages) where you reported complications and the provider responded.
Photograph everything: scarring, asymmetry, contour deformities. Take photos regularly as things evolve so you can document the injury over time.
Do not post about the injury or litigation on social media. Defense counsel routinely uses social media posts (photos showing you in apparent good spirits or activities inconsistent with claimed injuries) to undermine claims.
Consult an attorney who handles medical malpractice (med-mal) cases, not a general personal injury lawyer. Medical malpractice involves specialized procedural requirements under Chapter 766. An attorney who doesn’t regularly handle med-mal claims may miss deadlines, fail to comply with pre-suit requirements, or hire the wrong expert.

You’re looking for an attorney who will pull your records, send them to a qualified expert, and give an honest assessment of whether you have a viable case. Many consultations will conclude the incident wasn’t malpractice or that the damages don’t justify litigation costs. That answer is difficult to hear but preferable to spending years in an unwinnable lawsuit.

Florida’s plastic surgery malpractice laws do not lower the bar because a procedure was cosmetic. The standard of care is the same whether the surgery was medically necessary or elective. However, practical challenges — unregulated providers, cash-pay practices with little or no insurance, and the perception that patients assumed the risk — make these cases harder to win than most people expect when they first walk into a lawyer’s office holding before-and-after photos and a medical bill they cannot pay.

About the Author

Eric J. Goldman, Esq.

Eric J. Goldman is the principal attorney at the Law Offices of Eric J. Goldman, P.A. in Fort Lauderdale. With over 20 years of experience in real estate law and personal injury, he provides personalized legal counsel to clients throughout South Florida. Eric is a member of The Florida Bar and handles every case personally.

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