A patient sexually abused by a doctor, psychiatrist, or another health care provider may sue that provider, and in many cases the hospital, clinic, or practice that employed them. A doctor sexual abuse lawyer at Horowitz Law can explain how those two claims fit together.
Our sexual attorneys represent survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault, and that is the whole of our practice. We bring civil claims nationwide against health care institutions that put a patient in an exam room with someone they should not have.
Talking to us costs nothing and stays between us. Call (888) 283-9922 when you want to understand where you stand.
Tampa Sexual Abuse Guide
- Can You Sue a Doctor for Sexual Abuse?
- The Providers and Settings These Claims Involve
- What Counts as Sexual Misconduct in a Medical Setting?
- How Can a Hospital or Clinic Be Held Responsible?
- What Do Licensing and Disciplinary Records Show?
- How Long Do You Have to File a Medical Sexual Abuse Claim?
- Why Survivors Choose Horowitz Law
- What a Medical Abuse Claim May Recover
- FAQs Answered by Our Doctor Sexual Abuse Lawyer in Florida
- Speak With a Lawyer About Provider Sexual Abuse
Can You Sue a Doctor for Sexual Abuse?
Yes, and the claim does not depend on a criminal charge or a medical board finding. Those processes run on their own timelines and answer different questions than a civil case does.
A civil claim asks whether responsibility can be shown by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not. Prosecutors decline cases for many reasons, and licensing boards move slowly, so neither outcome settles whether a survivor has a claim.
How the claim is characterized does matter, though, and it is worth raising early. Depending on the facts and the state, abuse by a provider may be treated as an intentional tort rather than as medical malpractice, and malpractice claims often carry their own pre-suit notice requirements and shorter deadlines. Getting that classification right at the start protects the claim.
The Providers and Settings These Claims Involve
Any licensed provider who examines, treats, or counsels a patient in private can be the subject of one of these claims. The pattern is about access and authority rather than a particular field of medicine.
Our sexual assault by doctor attorneys handle claims involving:
- Physicians, including OB-GYNs, pediatricians, urologists, and primary care doctors
- Psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, and counselors
- Nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants
- Anesthesiologists and staff present during sedation or recovery
- Chiropractors, physical therapists, and rehabilitation providers
- Dentists, oral surgeons, and dental staff
- Imaging and ultrasound technicians
- Home health aides and in-home care workers
- Residential treatment and behavioral health staff
What connects these cases is a patient who was undressed, sedated, alone, or dependent, and a provider who used that position. The setting can be a hospital, a private practice, a university health center, a clinic, or a bedroom during a home visit.
What Counts as Sexual Misconduct in a Medical Setting?
Conduct crosses the line when it falls outside the scope of a legitimate examination or treatment, and state law says so in plain terms. Florida's statute is a useful example: section 458.329 of the Florida Statutes declares that the physician-patient relationship is founded on mutual trust, defines sexual misconduct as using that relationship to engage or attempt to engage a patient in sexual activity outside the scope of practice, and prohibits it.
Similar language reaches other licensed professions through chapter 456 of the Florida Statutes, which defines sexual misconduct for health care practitioners generally and makes it grounds for discipline. Most states have comparable provisions.
Patients often second-guess themselves because an exam has a clinical explanation attached to it. Some markers that our attorneys see repeatedly include examinations conducted without a chaperone when policy called for one, contact with intimate areas unrelated to the presenting complaint, no explanation or consent sought before an intimate exam, draping removed unnecessarily, sexual comments framed as clinical observation, or appointments moved to off-hours when staff had left.
Consent to treatment is never consent to sexual contact, and it does not become so because a patient stayed on the table or returned for another visit. Those responses are common and expected.
How Can a Hospital or Clinic Be Held Responsible?
An institution becomes responsible through its own conduct, separate from the provider's. This is usually where meaningful accountability lies, because employers carry the records, the policies, and the insurance.
Hiring and credentialing
Hospitals and practices are expected to verify licensure, check disciplinary history in every state where a provider has practiced, and follow up on gaps in a work history. Failing to do so can support a negligent hiring claim.
Response to complaints
Many of these cases turn on an earlier patient who spoke up. When a complaint was minimized, resolved informally, or answered by moving the provider to another department or facility, that decision becomes central evidence.
Supervision and chaperone policy
Where an institution had a chaperone policy for intimate examinations and did not enforce it, or had no policy at all, that gap speaks to supervision. The same applies to unmonitored after-hours access and sedation protocols.
Reporting failures
Health care employers generally have legal duties to report certain conduct to licensing boards and to state child-protection or adult-protection agencies when a patient is a minor or a vulnerable adult. A facility that handled an allegation entirely in-house may have skipped an obligation the law placed on it.
Those omissions leave a trail. Who was told, what was written down, and what was never sent to a regulator tend to emerge once a case is filed, and they often explain how a provider continued to see patients for years.
Establishing this kind of institutional responsibility takes document-by-document work, which is part of the case our attorneys handle. We also bring related claims involving abuse by massage therapists and bodywork providers, where the licensing and supervision issues look much the same.
What Do Licensing and Disciplinary Records Show?
Licensing and disciplinary records frequently show a history that the institution already knew about. Provider discipline is largely public, and pulling it early tells us whether a survivor is the first person to come forward or one of several.
In Florida, the Department of Health's Division of Medical Quality Assurance maintains a public license verification and enforcement search showing license status and whether discipline or a public administrative complaint is on file. The Florida Board of Medicine handles physician licensing and discipline, and every state operates an equivalent board.
These records matter for two reasons. They can corroborate a survivor's account, and they can show notice, meaning information an employer could have found with a routine check.
Filing a complaint with a licensing board is also separate from a physician sexual assault misconduct lawsuit, and the two can run at the same time. Some survivors want both; some want only the civil claim. That choice is yours.
How Long Do You Have to File a Medical Sexual Abuse Claim?
It depends on the state, the survivor's age at the time, and how the claim is characterized, so a single answer would be misleading. Using Florida as an illustration, section 95.11 sets several different clocks.
- Negligence claims generally carry a two-year deadline for causes of action accruing after the state's 2023 revision of the statute.
- Medical malpractice claims run two years from the incident or its discovery, subject to an outer limit, which is one reason characterization matters.
- Intentional tort claims founded on abuse may be brought within seven years after the survivor turns 18, within four years after leaving the dependency of the abuser, or within four years of connecting the injury to the abuse, whichever is latest.
- Sexual battery against a survivor who was under 16 at the time may be filed at any time under section 95.11(10), unless the claim was already barred on or before July 1, 2010.
Other states set their own deadlines, and several have opened lookback windows for older abuse claims. Because our practice is nationwide, we can tell you which rules apply to where your care took place rather than guessing from one state's law.
Why Survivors Choose Horowitz Law
It is fair to ask what makes a firm suited to this work. Here is what we can say plainly:
- Abuse claims are our only practice. Our attorneys decline general injury work, which keeps the focus on institutional cases like these.
- We work nationwide. Claims against hospital systems and provider groups often cross state lines, and we are set up for that.
- We litigate against institutions. Credentialing files, complaint histories, incident reports, and internal communications are where these claims are made, and pursuing them is routine for us.
- Trauma-informed process. You decide the pace and how much you share. We ask for what the case requires and not more.
- Privacy first. Pseudonym filings and protective orders are discussed before anything is filed.
- A team approach. Adam Horowitz founded the firm, and our attorneys work these matters together.
Survivors in Florida can also read about doctor abuse survivors in South Florida, where our office is based. To talk about your own situation, call (888) 283-9922 for a free, confidential consultation.
What a Medical Abuse Claim May Recover
This is about accountability and about resources, not about getting even with a person or an institution. Most of our clients describe the goal as making sure it stops and making sure they can get well.
A claim may address psychiatric and therapeutic care, further medical treatment, income lost to time away from work or an interrupted career, and the emotional harm itself. Survivors who avoided medical care afterward often carry costs from that, too, and it belongs in the conversation. For a fuller discussion of what medical-abuse claims may be worth, the categories are laid out in more detail there.
We will not attach a number to your case on the first call. What we will do is explain honestly what is on the table.
FAQs Answered by Our Doctor Sexual Abuse Lawyer in Florida
These are the questions patients most often bring to our attorneys when they are deciding whether to pursue a claim against a provider or a health system.
What if a nurse or chaperone was in the room?
A claim can still proceed. The presence of another staff member does not rule out misconduct, and it sometimes strengthens the case, because that person may have observed something or may have been trained to look away.
Can I sue if I was sedated and cannot recall clearly?
Often, yes. Cases involving sedation are built on records rather than recollection, including timing data, access logs, staffing assignments, and the accounts of others who came forward about the same provider.
Does it matter that I kept seeing the doctor afterward?
No. Continuing care is extremely common, particularly when a provider manages an ongoing condition or a prescription. It says nothing about consent.
What if the provider has already lost their license?
Discipline can help a civil claim rather than replace it. A board order does not compensate a patient, and the employer's separate responsibility remains open.
Will my medical records become public?
We work to prevent that. Where courts allow it, we file under a pseudonym, seek protective orders, and ask that sensitive records be sealed or limited to the parties.
Am I too late if this happened years ago?
Not necessarily. Deadlines vary by state and by the type of claim, and some states have reopened windows for older abuse claims. A short call is enough to find out.
Speak With a Lawyer About Provider Sexual Abuse
Reporting a doctor is daunting precisely because of the authority that made the abuse possible. You are entitled to a straight answer about your options, without pressure attached to it.
Horowitz Law represents survivors of sexual abuse by health care providers nationwide. Call (888) 283-9922 for a free and confidential consultation, and our attorneys will tell you what we think can be done.