On September 29, 2026, a Hennepin County jury handed down one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in Minnesota history — an $84 million award against Fairview Health Services. At the center of the case was physician assistant Jeffrey Schmidt, who allegedly failed to order a cardiac workup after patient Reece Devlin, a 53-year-old Ernst & Young executive, reported chest pain during both an in-person visit and a virtual follow-up appointment. Devlin died on January 29, 2023 of an exercise-induced heart attack. The verdict has fundamentally shifted how attorneys, insurers, and health systems are thinking about physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts — and what those figures mean for victims and their families.
The Fairview Verdict: Why This $84M Award Changed Everything
The Devlin case is a landmark not just for its dollar amount, but for what it reveals about the compounding liability risks of PA-led care in virtual settings. The jury awarded $62.5 million for future loss of companionship alone — a figure that reflects both the severity of the loss and Minnesota’s legal landscape. Unlike many states, Minnesota imposes no statutory cap on non-economic damages, meaning juries face no ceiling when quantifying grief, relational loss, or pain and suffering. That absence of a cap directly enabled the extraordinary size of this award.
Beyond the companionship damages, Devlin’s position as a senior Ernst & Young executive drove a substantial lost earnings component. High-income wrongful death cases consistently produce outsized economic damage calculations because courts project lost wages, benefits, bonuses, and career trajectory across the decedent’s expected working life. When you combine uncapped non-economic damages with multi-million dollar economic loss projections, physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts in wrongful death scenarios can reach figures that once seemed impossible. Fairview is evaluating appeal and remittitur options, but the verdict itself has already recalibrated industry expectations.
NPDB Data: What Physician Assistant Malpractice Settlement Amounts Actually Look Like
The Fairview verdict is a dramatic outlier, but the broader data tells a compelling story on its own. According to National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) 2025 reporting data, there were 220 physician assistant malpractice payment reports totaling $101.35 million, producing an average of approximately $461,000 per paid PA malpractice claim. That average significantly exceeds the general medical malpractice settlement benchmark of $242,000–$425,000 across all practitioner types — a gap that reflects the high-stakes diagnostic scenarios PAs frequently manage.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fairview/Devlin Jury Verdict (Sept. 29, 2026) | $84,000,000 | Hennepin County District Court |
| NPDB PA Malpractice Payment Reports (2025) | 220 reports / $101.35M total | NPDB Public Use Data File |
| Average PA Malpractice Payment Per Claim | ~$461,000 | NPDB 2025 |
| Overall Medical Malpractice Settlement Average (2026) | $242,000–$425,000 | NPDB 2026 |
| Wrongful Death Malpractice Cases Average | ~$380,300 | NPDB 2025–2026 Aggregate |
| Companionship Damages Alone — Devlin Verdict | $62,500,000 | Hennepin County Jury Award |
The wrongful death malpractice average of approximately $380,300 represents cases across all states and practitioner types. When the decedent is a high-income professional in a no-cap state like Minnesota, that baseline number becomes a floor rather than a ceiling. For families evaluating potential claims, using a wrongful death calculator can help establish a preliminary damages framework before consulting with counsel.
The Most Common Allegations in PA Malpractice Claims
Failure to Diagnose: Cardiac and Cancer Cases Dominate
The two most frequently alleged categories of negligence in physician assistant malpractice claims are failure to diagnose cardiac conditions and failure to diagnose cancer. In the Devlin case, the cardiac failure-to-diagnose pathway is textbook: a patient presents with chest pain, receives a surface-level evaluation, and is sent home without appropriate testing — in this case, a stress test or cardiology referral. When that patient later dies of a cardiac event, the causal chain between the PA’s omission and the patient’s death is relatively clear to a jury.
Cancer misdiagnosis claims follow a similar pattern, often involving a PA who evaluates a suspicious lump, persistent symptom, or abnormal screening result and either fails to order follow-up imaging or neglects to refer to a specialist. These cases are among the highest-value physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts in the NPDB database precisely because delayed diagnosis in cancer correlates directly with reduced survival rates and the attendant increase in both economic and non-economic damages.
Failure to Refer: The Escalation Duty That Defines PA Liability
A PA’s scope of practice is defined by statute and collaborative practice agreements — and central to that scope is the duty to escalate when a clinical situation exceeds safe management at the PA level. The legal standard of care requires a PA to recognize when a patient’s presentation warrants evaluation by a physician or specialist and to facilitate that referral promptly. In the Devlin matter, the failure was two-fold: failure to refer after the initial in-person chest pain complaint, and failure to escalate or mandate in-person evaluation during the virtual follow-up visit three months later. That second failure — the virtual visit failure — is where PA malpractice liability is rapidly evolving in 2026.
Virtual Visits and the Standard of Care: No Telehealth Discount
One of the most significant legal questions the Devlin verdict answers is whether a virtual or telehealth visit creates a lower standard of care. The answer, confirmed by the jury’s findings and aligned with guidance from the American Medical Association, the American Telemedicine Association, and the Federation of State Medical Boards, is an unambiguous no. The standard of care during a virtual visit is identical to the standard during an in-person visit. There is no “telehealth discount” on clinical duty.
What this means in practice — and what drives physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts upward in virtual-visit cases — is that a PA conducting a video or audio-only consultation who cannot adequately assess a patient’s condition faces a binary obligation: either gather sufficient clinical information to safely manage the condition remotely, or refer the patient to in-person care. When a patient reports chest pain during a virtual follow-up, and the PA cannot auscultate heart sounds, obtain a 12-lead EKG, or monitor vital signs in real time, the duty to escalate becomes acute. Failure to send that patient for immediate in-person cardiac evaluation — a stress test, an echocardiogram, or a cardiology consult — is precisely the kind of omission that juries are now being asked to value in the millions.
The Devlin case is not isolated. As of 2026, telehealth-related malpractice claims are among the fastest-growing categories in PA liability, and insurers are adjusting premiums accordingly. This trend also intersects with emerging mass tort settlement calculator frameworks being developed for systemic telehealth failures across large health networks.
Supervising Physician Liability: When the PA’s Employer Shares the Verdict
In virtually every state, PAs practice under a collaborative or supervisory relationship with a licensed physician. The structure of that relationship — and the specificity of the collaborative practice agreement — directly determines whether the supervising physician and the employing health system share liability for the PA’s negligence. In the Fairview case, the verdict was entered against Fairview Health Services as the institutional defendant, which is the standard pathway when a PA is an employee acting within the scope of employment.
Under respondeat superior doctrine, an employer is vicariously liable for the negligent acts of its employees committed within the scope of their duties. This means that even when the clinical failure is attributable to an individual PA, the health system, hospital group, or medical practice that employs that PA typically becomes the primary defendant for collection purposes. Supervising physicians can face direct liability if the evidence shows inadequate oversight — for example, if a collaborative practice agreement required physician review of complex cases and that review never occurred. Families and attorneys evaluating physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts should map the full defendant landscape, including the institution, the supervising physician, and any relevant telemedicine platform, before calculating exposure.
Emerging Liability Hotspot: Awake Liposuction and Cosmetic PA Malpractice
The Devlin verdict is the most visible PA malpractice story of 2026, but it is not the only major liability development. As of January 2026, more than 20 separate malpractice suits have been filed against awake liposuction chains in which PAs or NPs provided anesthesia monitoring without adequate training or physician oversight. These cases allege inadequate monitoring of sedation levels, failure to respond to cardiovascular distress signals, and systemic understaffing of recovery areas. Physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts in these cosmetic procedure cases cluster in the $250,000–$1.2 million range, though cases involving permanent injury or death are tracking higher as litigation matures.
Victims who suffered anoxic brain injury during cosmetic procedures involving inadequate PA monitoring may find preliminary valuation tools helpful — a brain injury calculator can provide an initial framework for understanding the economic and non-economic components of those claims before formal legal evaluation begins.
How to Calculate a PA Malpractice Claim: A Framework
Step 1 — Establish Economic Damages
Economic damages in a PA malpractice claim include past and future medical expenses, lost wages (actual and projected), lost earning capacity, and — in wrongful death cases — the financial support the decedent would have provided to dependents. High-income decedents like Reece Devlin generate substantially larger economic damage calculations because wage replacement projections extend over decades and incorporate bonuses, equity compensation, and career advancement curves. For living plaintiffs, ongoing care costs such as cardiac rehabilitation, monitoring, or surgical correction of a missed diagnosis form the core of economic loss.
Step 2 — Quantify Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, and — critically in wrongful death actions — loss of companionship and consortium. The $62.5 million companionship award in the Devlin case illustrates how a jury in a no-cap state can value the relationship loss of a spouse, parent, or partner over decades of projected life expectancy. States with non-economic damage caps — many set between $250,000 and $750,000 — will constrain this component significantly, making the defendant state’s statutory framework one of the most important variables in projecting physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts.
Step 3 — Apply State Cap Analysis and Liability Allocation
After establishing gross damages, apply your state’s cap structure. State legislative databases track current non-economic damage caps by jurisdiction, which vary dramatically. Then allocate liability among defendants — the PA, the supervising physician, the health system, and any technology platform involved in the virtual visit. Cases with multiple defendants often settle at higher aggregate amounts because each defendant’s insurer calculates its own exposure independently.
Step 4 — Factor in Punitive Exposure
In cases where a PA or health system acted with reckless disregard for patient safety — for example, continuing to staff virtual cardiac consultations without referral protocols despite known adverse outcomes — punitive damages may be available. Minnesota’s punitive damages statute requires clear and convincing evidence of deliberate disregard for patient rights. Where punitive exposure exists, settlement leverage increases significantly, and physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts in negotiation often reflect the defendant’s desire to avoid jury-determined punitive awards.
Frequently Asked Questions About Physician Assistant Malpractice Settlement Amounts
What is the average physician assistant malpractice settlement amount in 2026?
Based on NPDB 2025 data, the average physician assistant malpractice payment is approximately $461,000 per paid claim, with 220 PA malpractice payment reports totaling $101.35 million. However, wrongful death cases average around $380,300 at the national level, and high-value outlier cases — like the $84 million Fairview verdict — demonstrate that cases involving fatal cardiac misdiagnosis in no-cap states can produce multiples of the average. The specific value of any claim depends on the state’s cap structure, the severity of injury or death, and the income profile of the patient.
Can a PA be personally sued for malpractice, or is only the employer liable?
A PA can be named as an individual defendant in a malpractice lawsuit and can face personal judgment. In practice, most PA malpractice claims also name the employing health system or practice under vicarious liability (respondeat superior) because the employer typically has deeper pockets and professional liability insurance. The supervising physician may also be named if the collaborative practice agreement imposed oversight duties that went unmet. Both individual and institutional defendants are commonly named in high-value claims to maximize recovery potential.
Does a virtual or telehealth visit reduce a PA’s duty of care?
No. Under standards endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Telemedicine Association, and the Federation of State Medical Boards, the standard of care during a telehealth visit is identical to that of an in-person visit. If a PA cannot adequately evaluate a patient’s condition remotely — for example, a patient reporting chest pain during a video visit — the PA has an affirmative duty to refer the patient for in-person evaluation. Failure to refer in that scenario is one of the most actively litigated theories in PA malpractice claims as of 2026, as illustrated by the Devlin/Fairview verdict.
How do non-economic damage caps affect physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts?
Non-economic damage caps directly limit the loss-of-companionship, pain and suffering, and emotional distress components of a malpractice award. States like Minnesota — which has no non-economic cap — allowed the Devlin jury to award $62.5 million for companionship loss alone. In a state with a $500,000 non-economic cap, that same claim might have produced a total award one-tenth the size. When evaluating the settlement value of a PA malpractice claim, the single most important jurisdictional variable is whether the state imposes a non-economic damages ceiling and at what level it is set.
What types of PA malpractice cases produce the highest settlement amounts?
The highest physician assistant malpractice settlement amounts consistently arise from three case types: (1) fatal cardiac misdiagnosis, particularly when chest pain is documented and the PA fails to order a stress test or cardiology referral; (2) delayed cancer diagnosis, where the delay is measurable in months and correlates with a stage advancement that reduces survival probability; and (3) anesthesia or sedation monitoring failures in cosmetic or outpatient procedure settings. In all three categories, the causal link between the PA’s omission and a catastrophic outcome must be clearly documented in the medical record, and expert testimony establishing the standard of care is essential to maximizing recovery.
This content is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice; consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction regarding any specific medical malpractice claim.
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Christine Norwood is a medical malpractice research analyst with a background in healthcare quality and medical-legal analysis. She specializes in helping patients and families understand their rights when harmed by medical negligence. Ms. Norwood is not a physician or attorney and the information provided is for educational purposes only.