Percy Martinez in the media.

InterviewerFor families watching this. When something goes wrong with a parent or a child in a Florida hospital, what is the first thing they should do?

Percy MartinezThe records. Before a lawyer is even involved. Request the complete chart, the imaging studies, and the nursing notes. Most of the truth of what happened is in the documentation, and most of what gets contested later is in the gaps.

InterviewerYou have said publicly that you turn away most of the cases that come to you. Why is that?

Percy MartinezFlorida has a presuit process. Before a malpractice lawsuit can be filed, a qualified expert has to review the records and provide a written opinion that the standard of care was violated. If the expert will not sign that affidavit, the case does not move forward. That filter is doing its job, but it means a lot of families with very real harm cannot proceed because the documentation is not there.

InterviewerAnd when a case does proceed?

Percy MartinezThen the work is showing the jury what the chart already shows. Not telling them what should have happened. Showing them what was supposed to happen under the hospital’s own protocol, and pointing to the line in the record where the response was missing or late.

InterviewerWhat does it cost a family to bring a case like this?

Percy MartinezNothing out of pocket. We work on contingency. We advance the case costs: the experts, the depositions, the medical illustration. If we do not recover for the family, the family does not pay us. That is the only way I have ever practiced.

Note. Transcript edited for length and clarity. The full video is the canonical source.

Percy MartinezThe Meneses case is a case where the documentation did most of the work for us. The warning signs were in the chart. The protocol-required response was not.

Percy MartinezWhat we had to do for this family was translate the medical record into something a jury could see and feel. Not as a stack of pages. As a timeline. Hour by hour. What the nurse charted. What the protocol required. What did not happen.

Percy MartinezCultural context mattered here too. The family is Spanish-speaking. We presented the case in both languages so the family could participate fully: every deposition, every mediation session. That should be the baseline, not a feature.

Percy MartinezFlorida’s Wrongful Death Act sets out who can recover and what categories of damages apply. The recovery here was structured around the statute and around what would actually serve the surviving family for the rest of their lives.

Note. Transcript edited for length and clarity. Settlement details are governed by the resolution agreement and are not discussed beyond what is in the public docket.

InterviewerThis was a high-profile case in South Florida. What did you see in the record that the public did not?

Percy MartinezWhat we saw was a documented set of symptoms that should have prompted a specific workup. That workup was not ordered. That is not a question of judgment in hindsight. It is a question of what the protocol required at the time.

InterviewerYou have talked publicly about how remote care creates a particular risk. Walk us through that.

Percy MartinezWhen care is happening over the phone, over a screen, or in a system that is short on staff, the things that normally get caught by direct observation depend entirely on documentation. If the documentation is incomplete, you cannot reconstruct what happened. And from a liability standpoint, an undocumented finding is no finding at all.

InterviewerYou also mentioned what insurers look at.

Percy MartinezCarriers are not a mystery. They look at documentation discipline. They look at whether the providers and the facility have a paper trail that supports the standard of care. When that is weak, coverage gets harder, premiums get higher, and in some cases the carrier walks away from the renewal entirely.

Note. Transcript edited for length and clarity. The full video is the canonical source.