Doctor and medical abuse
New Jersey Doctor and Medical Sexual Abuse Lawyer
If a doctor, nurse, therapist or any other medical provider sexually abused you during examination or treatment, you can bring a civil claim against that person and against the practice, hospital or health system that credentialed and supervised them. Consenting to an examination is not consenting to what happened during it, and a claim does not depend on a criminal case or a licensing board finding.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
- NJ Bar No. 032141988Verifiable, and published here so you can check it
- 37 yearsAdmitted in New Jersey in 1989
- No fee unless you winCases are handled on contingency
- Free and confidentialNothing you say here commits you to anything
Why people take years to ask about this one
Medical cases have a particular difficulty at their center: the setting is designed to make the conduct hard to identify.
“I could not tell if it was part of the examination.”
That is the ordinary experience, not a failure of perception. You are undressed, alone with someone whose judgment you have been taught to defer to, often unwell or frightened, and being touched by a person whose job involves touching. Working it out afterward, sometimes years afterward, is normal and expected. It does not undermine a claim.
“I agreed to be examined.”
Consent to an examination is not consent to whatever happened in the room. It is the boundary that was crossed. Contact with no clinical purpose, an examination without a chaperone where one should have been present, comments about your body, or anything done for the provider’s gratification, sit outside what was agreed regardless of what was signed at reception.
“Nobody would believe me over a doctor.”
Civil claims against medical providers do not turn on which of you is more credible in the abstract. They turn on records: chaperone policies, appointment logs, prior complaints, credentialing files and what the practice did with them. That material exists independently of you.
“The board dealt with it, so that is the end.”
A licensing board decides whether someone may keep practicing. It does not compensate you and it is not a substitute for a civil claim. A board finding can help a claim. Its absence does not prevent one.
Can you sue a doctor in New Jersey for sexual abuse?
In most circumstances, yes. A civil claim is separate from any criminal case and from any action by the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners. It belongs to you, it is decided to a lower standard of proof, and it can proceed whether or not anyone was ever charged and whether or not a license was ever affected.
Who is legally responsible
The provider, and usually the organization that put them in front of patients.
- Negligent credentialing. Hospitals and health systems grant privileges. A claim asks what was verified, what was asked of previous employers, and whether anything known was set aside.
- Negligent supervision. Chaperone policy and whether it was enforced, examination room arrangements, and how sensitive examinations were actually conducted rather than how the policy described them.
- Negligent retention. Whether earlier complaints existed, and what happened to the provider afterward. Quiet departures with clean references are a recurring pattern.
- Failure to report. Medical professionals are mandatory reporters where a child is involved.
- Responsibility of the practice or system. Group practices, hospital networks and staffing companies set the policies and receive the complaints, and are frequently the entity holding both the records and the insurance.
How institutions are held liable for sexual abuse in New Jersey
The settings these claims come from
Neutral context, not accusations.
- Primary care and family medicine
- Obstetrics, gynecology and fertility treatment
- Pediatrics, including examinations of children
- Psychiatry, psychology and therapy, including inpatient treatment
- Emergency departments and urgent care
- Anesthesia, and sedated or unconscious patients
- Physical therapy, chiropractic and sports medicine
- Nursing, including home nursing and long-term care
- Imaging, sonography and diagnostic testing
- Dentistry and oral surgery
- Ambulance and patient transport
Abuse in a residential care setting may fit better with a claim about that facility, and the two often overlap.
Therapists, psychiatrists and the treatment relationship
Worth separating out. A therapeutic relationship involves deliberate emotional dependence, and a sexual relationship that begins inside one is not treated as a relationship between equals, whatever it felt like at the time and however it started. This applies to adult patients as much as to children, and the fact that you may have believed it was consensual is a feature of these cases rather than a defense to them.
What to do now
- Request your own medical records if you are comfortable doing so. You are entitled to them, and appointment dates and clinical notes establish the timeline. Request records, not an explanation.
- Do not raise it with the practice as a complaint before taking advice on what that starts.
- Keep appointment confirmations, messages, insurance statements and referral letters, which independently establish who you saw and when.
What a claim can recover
Typically the cost of counseling and treatment, the effect on your ability to work, the medical care you avoided afterward and its consequences, and the harm itself. Avoidance of medical care is common after this kind of abuse and is a real and compensable consequence of it.
There is no fee unless a claim succeeds, and no cost to asking whether you have one.
How long do you have to file in New Jersey?
If you were abused as a child, you can generally bring a civil claim in New Jersey until your 55th birthday, or within seven years of realizing that your injuries are connected to the abuse, whichever of those is later.
If you were an adult when the abuse happened, the period is generally seven years from the incident, or seven years from the point at which you connected the harm to it.
New Jersey also ran a two-year lookback window, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2021, during which claims that had already expired could be brought regardless of age. That window has closed. It is worth being clear about, because people hear that it closed and conclude they have missed everything, when the ordinary deadlines above are separate and often still leave years.
Which of these applies to you, and when your seven years started, depends on facts specific to you. A short confidential call will tell you where you actually stand.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Cases Joe has resolved
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$6.1 Million Recovery
for a woman who was sexually assaulted after being overserved alcohol.
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$4.5 Million Settlement
for a minor who was sexually abused as a student by a staff member at her public school.
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstance. Every case turns on its own facts, and no result here predicts what any other case is worth.
Questions people ask
I consented to the examination. Does that end it?
No. Consenting to a medical examination is consent to a medical examination. It is not consent to contact that has no clinical purpose, to an examination conducted without a chaperone in circumstances requiring one, or to anything done for the provider's own gratification. The consent you gave defines the limit that was crossed rather than removing it.
I was not sure at the time whether it was normal.
That is the most common feature of these cases. Patients are undressed, alone, unwell and in the hands of someone whose authority they have been taught to accept, and the point of a clinical setting is that you cannot easily tell. Delay in recognizing it is expected and does not damage a claim.
Do I have to report it to the licensing board first?
No. A civil claim is independent of the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners and of any other licensing body. You can do both, one, or neither, and a board investigation neither has to happen first nor has to conclude before a claim can proceed.
Is this a medical malpractice case?
It can involve overlapping rules, and it is worth having someone look at it who understands both. Sexual abuse in a clinical setting is not ordinary negligent treatment, and how a claim is framed can affect which procedural requirements apply.
Can the hospital be responsible if the doctor was not employed by it?
Often, yes. Hospitals and health systems grant privileges, credential providers, and are responsible for what their own credentialing and complaint processes did and did not do. Independent contractor status is not the end of the analysis.
Other patients complained before me and nothing happened.
That is among the strongest facts a claim can have. Prior complaints show the organization knew, and complaints are normally recorded somewhere internally even when nothing visible followed.
What if it happened when I was a child, at a pediatrician or a hospital?
A claim can still exist, often many years later. Abuse in childhood in a medical setting is a recognized category of these cases and is treated under rules that are more generous than people expect.
Does this cover therapists and counselors as well as doctors?
Abuse by a psychiatrist, psychologist or therapist involves the same core question of a trusted provider exploiting a clinical relationship, but the dependence a therapeutic relationship creates is treated as its own factor. Those claims are covered on the page about abuse by a psychiatrist or therapist, and the licensing board that regulates the provider differs as well.
If you are still reading
People usually read a page like this several times over several weeks before they contact anyone. That is normal, and there is no deadline on this page trying to push you. When you are ready, the call is free and it stays between you and Joe.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.