Kentucky Medical Malpractice Settlement Calculator
Estimate a medical malpractice settlement under Kentucky law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Kentucky law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a malpractice claim: how long you have to file, what must happen before you file, what happens if you were partly at fault, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Kentucky uses pure comparative fault.
KRS § 411.182; Hilen v. Hays, 673 S.W.2d 713 (Ky. 1984)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Ky. Const. §§ 54, 241; Kentucky Supreme Court precedent·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
The Kentucky Legislature's chapter 411 listing, read in this session, does not list a malpractice certificate-of-merit section, so none was quoted. So this page does not say whether Kentucky requires a notice to the provider, an expert's affidavit or a review panel before a malpractice suit. That is a gap in our research, not a finding that nothing is required. Ask a licensed Kentucky attorney before you file.
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
What partial fault costs you in Kentucky
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Kentucky law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Kentucky deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Kentucky periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
KRS § 413.140(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorKRS § 413.140(1)(e), (2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorFor a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Kentucky, the one year published here may not be the deadline that governs, and the question is not settled at the Kentucky Supreme Court. The one year is the general wrongful-death period under KRS §§ 413.140 and 413.180. KRS § 304.39-230(6), the provision that sets the filing deadline for a Kentucky car accident, allows an action "not later than two (2) years after the injury, or the death, or the date of issuance of the last basic or added reparation payment". In Hammers v. Plunk, a published 2011 decision, the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that an estate's wrongful-death claims arising out of an automobile accident "covered under the MVRA" are "covered under the two-year limitations period set forth in KRS 304.39-230(6)", running from the last reparation payment where that came later. The Kentucky Supreme Court has not decided the point. The same decision kept the children's loss-of-consortium claims in that case on one year, and the two years applies only where the crash falls within Kentucky's Motor Vehicle Reparations Act. This calculator serves deaths of every kind, so it keeps the one year, and a family inside it is inside both readings. Speak to a licensed Kentucky attorney well inside it.
KRS §§ 413.140, 413.180·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorTwo years from the accident is the earliest a Kentucky workers' compensation filing deadline can fall, and not always the deadline itself. KRS 342.185(1) requires the application for adjustment of claim "within two (2) years after the date of the accident, or in case of death, within two (2) years after the death", and goes on: "If payments of income benefits have been made, the filing of an application for adjustment of claim with the department within the period shall not be required, but shall become requisite within two (2) years following the suspension of payments or within two (2) years of the date of the accident, whichever is later." So where income benefits were paid, the application is due within two years following the suspension of payments where that falls later than two years from the accident, and never earlier. Subsections (2) and (3) of the same section set other periods for work-related exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus and for a cumulative trauma injury. Ask a licensed Kentucky attorney which date applies to your claim.
KRS 342.185(1)·Last reviewed 2026-10-04
Open the workers compensation calculatorKentucky's motor-vehicle filing deadline is set by KRS § 304.39-230(6), not by the one-year general personal-injury period in KRS § 413.140(1)(a). That provision gives two years after the injury or the death, or two years after the date of issuance of the last basic or added reparation payment made by any reparation obligor, whichever falls later. Two years from the crash is therefore the EARLIEST your deadline can fall and not the deadline itself: where no-fault payments were still being issued after that point, the clock runs from the last one, and only your own record of those payments fixes the later date. The provision governs tort liability not abolished by KRS § 304.39-060, Kentucky's no-fault threshold, so speak to a licensed Kentucky attorney before relying on either date.
Riding a motorcycle? No Kentucky court decision read for this site says whether this provision reaches a rider's claim, so this site gives a rider's claim in Kentucky one year, the general personal-injury period, as the earliest its deadline can fall. The motorcycle accident calculator shows the period a rider's claim in Kentucky is given, and why.
Riding a bicycle? No Kentucky court decision read for this site says whether this provision reaches a cyclist's claim, so this site gives a cyclist's claim in Kentucky one year, the general personal-injury period, as the earliest its deadline can fall. The bicycle accident calculator shows the period a cyclist's claim in Kentucky is given, and why.
KRS § 304.39-230(6)·Last reviewed 2026-09-20
Open the motor vehicle claims calculatorKentucky against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 11 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply the pure comparative negligence rule, and Kentucky is one of them.
- Its 1 year to file is shorter than the 2 years that 31 jurisdictions use, so there is less time than a reader comparing states might expect. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 4 years.
- We have read the official text of 26 jurisdictions' rules on what must come before a malpractice suit, and 25 of them require something: a notice to the provider, an expert's affidavit, certificate or opinion, or a review panel. We have not read Kentucky's.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data and Kentucky is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Kentucky calculators
Kentucky Medical Malpractice questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.