Litigation & Disputes
How Malpractice Compensation Is Calculated in Turkey
How is compensation calculated in Turkish malpractice cases? Learn about material and moral damages, loss of earnings, and financial recovery.
When medical negligence causes injury or death, the legal system cannot reverse the physical damage. Instead, it offers a financial remedy designed to restore the victim's economic status and acknowledge their suffering.
In Turkish law, whether you are suing under Administrative Law (for state hospitals) or Private Law (for private clinics), the compensation is strictly categorized into Material Compensation (Maddi Tazminat) and Moral Compensation (Manevi Tazminat). Understanding how these are calculated is essential for managing expectations in a malpractice lawsuit.
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Key Takeaways
The heads of loss are fixed by statute: Turkish Code of Obligations (Türk Borçlar Kanunu, Law No. 6098) article 53 on a death, article 54 on a bodily injury.
Article 55 bars the judge from adjusting an actuarial figure on equitable grounds, and bars deducting social security payments that cannot be recovered from the wrongdoer by way of recourse.
For incidents after 31 July 2026, interest on loss-of-earning-capacity and loss-of-support awards runs from the incident only for the period in which earnings are known; for the projected years, from the judgment.
Deadlines split by defendant: against private providers two and ten years in tort, but five years on the contract under article 147/5; against state hospitals one and five years plus a prior application.
Material Compensation: Restoring Financial Balance
Material compensation aims to cover the actual financial losses incurred due to the medical error. The goal is to put the victim in the financial position they would have been in had the error never occurred.
Articles 53 and 54 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (Law No. 6098) list, "in particular" (özellikle) and so not exhaustively, the losses recoverable on a death and on a bodily injury. In a malpractice file they translate into these claims:
Treatment Expenses: Any costs paid to correct the error, including surgeries, medication, and rehabilitation.
Loss of Earnings (Temporary): If the patient cannot work during recovery, they can claim the income lost during this period.
Loss of Workforce (Permanent Disability): If the malpractice results in a permanent disability (e.g., loss of a limb or organ function), the court calculates the "loss of work power" (iş göremezlik). This is an actuarial calculation projecting lost future earnings over the victim's remaining active life.
Damage to Economic Future: Article 54 adds the shaking of one's economic future (ekonomik geleceğin sarsılması), for the claimant whose capacity is intact on paper but who is now harder to employ.
Caregiver Fees: If the victim requires permanent assistance (e.g., a child born with cerebral palsy due to negligence), the cost of a caregiver (bakıcı ücreti) can be claimed as part of the loss, since Articles 53 and 54 list the heads only "in particular".
Loss of Support (Destekten Yoksun Kalma): If the malpractice results in death, those the deceased supported — typically a spouse or children — can claim the support they lose (Article 53(3)).
Expert Calculation: These figures come from court-appointed experts (Bilirkişi) — often the Forensic Medicine Institute — who assess the percentage of disability and the fault.
How the number is actually built
Expert evidence is ordered under article 266 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Law No. 6100), only where the question needs knowledge outside law. A malpractice file therefore runs on two reports: a medical board — often a specialisation board of the Council of Forensic Medicine (Adli Tıp Kurumu) — fixes the fault ratio and the disability percentage, and an actuarial expert converts it into money across the claimant's remaining active working life. Article 55 then bars the judge from adjusting the result because the total feels high or low, and applies the same method to administrative claims, so a state hospital claim is valued like a private one.
Deductions are controlled too. Social security payments that cannot be recovered from the liable party by way of recourse do not come off the loss. For incidents after 31 July 2026, Article 55 as amended by Law No. 7589 adds that sums paid by way of performance before the evidentiary stage (tahkikat) begins are deducted proportionally from loss-of-earning-capacity and loss-of-support awards, valued at their payment date. Article 52 cuts the other way, letting the judge reduce damages where the patient consented, contributed to the loss or made it worse.
Moral Compensation: The Price of Suffering
Moral compensation is more abstract. It is designed to compensate for the pain, sorrow, and reduction in the joy of living caused by the doctor's error.
However, moral compensation is not a penalty, nor is it a mechanism for enrichment: article 56 of the Code of Obligations provides for "an appropriate sum" (uygun bir miktar) to be paid as moral compensation, fixed having regard to the particular circumstances of the case.
How is it calculated?
The statute gives the judge discretion in general terms: article 56 directs attention to the particular circumstances of the case (olayın özellikleri), and article 51 has the judge set the extent of compensation according to the circumstances and, in particular, the degree of fault (kusurun ağırlığı). The file should therefore address:
Fault Ratio: How much was the doctor to blame versus the patient's own condition or potential complications? Article 51 makes the degree of fault a central measure.
Severity of Harm: A permanent scar on the face warrants higher damages than a temporary injury.
The Parties' Circumstances: In Turkish doctrine the economic and social position of both parties is part of the circumstances weighed under article 56; the aim is a sum that is felt without becoming a penalty or an enrichment.
Example: Article 56/1 does not require a severe injury: any harm to bodily integrity (bedensel bütünlüğün zedelenmesi) can ground an award. Burns suffered in a cosmetic laser procedure, with the distress of visible scarring, can therefore support a claim for moral compensation even though they were not life-threatening.
Who else may claim
Article 56 has two paragraphs. The first covers the injured patient; the second allows an award to relatives, but only where the bodily harm was severe or the patient died. After a moderate injury a spouse has no separate claim; after a death, the claim is theirs and is brought in their own name.
The interest clock: when does it start?
In long-running cases, legal interest (yasal faiz) becomes a large share of the payout.
The rule for incidents after 31 July 2026
Article 55 of the Code of Obligations, as amended by Law No. 7589, now splits the award. On the part covering the period in which the claimant's — or the deceased supporter's — earnings are known, interest runs from the wrongful act. On the projected future years it runs only from the judgment, so a late-filed claim no longer accrues interest across the whole future stream.
Check your incident date before relying on this. The new interest regime applies only to wrongful acts and damage-causing events occurring after 31 July 2026. If the negligence you are complaining of happened before that date — which is the case for most claims being prepared in 2026 — your file continues under the previous version of Article 55, which contained no split start date. For a claim brought in tort, article 117/2 then puts the liable party in default from the day the wrongful act was committed, so default interest runs on the whole award from that date. Getting this wrong changes the figure materially in a claim that took years to reach judgment.
Claims against state hospitals
Against a public hospital the claim is a full-remedy action (tam yargı davası) in the administrative courts, preceded by a written application to the administration under article 13 of the Administrative Procedure Law (Law No. 2577). Article 55/2 applies the Code of Obligations to claims for bodily harm or death arising from every kind of administrative act and action, which on its face carries the new split start date into full-remedy actions too. Because the new text is recent, plead the interest start date expressly in both the application and the claim.
What rate applies
Since 31 July 2026, article 1 of Law No. 3095, as amended by Law No. 7589, sets legal interest at 80 percent of the short-term rediscount rate applied by the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye on 31 December of the preceding year, with a reset on 30 June if that rate moves by five points or more. Article 3 of the same Law bars compound interest when legal or default interest is calculated.
Deadlines that decide whether you recover anything
Against a private doctor, clinic or hospital two limitation regimes run side by side, and you may rely on whichever is still open. In tort, article 72 gives two years from the day the injured person learns of both the damage and the person liable, and ten years in any event from the act; where the conduct is also a crime with a longer limitation period, that longer period governs the claim. In contract, the patient's agreement with a doctor or a private hospital is not a contract the Code of Obligations regulates by name; article 502 applies the mandate (vekâlet) rules to service contracts the Code does not otherwise regulate, and Turkish doctrine generally treats medical treatment as a mandate. Claims arising from a mandate carry five years under article 147/5, running under article 149 from when the claim falls due. Where the file belongs to the consumer courts, the two-year period for defective services in article 16 of the Consumer Protection Law (Law No. 6502) applies only where the law or the contract sets no longer period, so it does not cut the five years down. Where the contract instead promises a defined result — an argument made for some aesthetic or dental work — it may be characterised as a contract for work (eser, article 470), and article 478 then sets, for claims over a defective work, two years from delivery for works other than buildings and twenty years where the contractor was grossly at fault. A claim that looks dead on the tort clock is therefore often still alive on the contractual one.
Against a state hospital the clock is shorter. Article 13 of Law No. 2577 requires an application to the authority within one year of learning of the action, and within five years of the action itself. A refusal, or thirty days of silence, opens the sixty-day filing period under article 7. If you sued in the civil courts and lost on jurisdiction, article 13/2 excuses that application.
Filing after the July 2026 procedural reform
Malpractice claims used to be filed as indeterminate-claim actions (belirsiz alacak davası), because the figure is unknowable before the expert reports land. Law No. 7589 repealed article 107 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which housed that device. Article 109/4 replaces it: a partial claim may be increased once, free of the prohibition on extending claims, up to the close of evidence, with limitation interrupted from the filing date for the increased part too.
Who you sue matters as much. Doctors in public hospitals are not sued personally for their medical acts; the claim goes against the administration, which may seek recourse later. Since 2022, Ek Madde 18 of Law No. 3359 routes criminal investigations of health professionals through a permission procedure before the Ministry of Health's Professional Liability Board. Ek Madde 12 of Law No. 1219 makes liability insurance compulsory, so an insurer usually stands behind the defendant. Where the claim falls to the consumer courts, mediation is a precondition to filing (Law No. 6502 art. 73/A).
What the claim costs, and how long it runs
The proportional judgment fee (karar ve ilam harcı) in the civil courts is 68.31 per thousand — 6.831 percent — of the amount actually awarded by the judgment; the advance instalment payable on filing is the one calculated on the amount claimed. Article 28 of the Law on Fees (Law No. 492) normally requires a quarter of it in advance, but in damages claims brought for death or bodily injury the advance drops to one twentieth — which is why a large malpractice claim can be filed without a prohibitive deposit. Budget separately for the application fee, expert panel fees and sworn translation of foreign records, which usually need an apostille.
On timing, article 147/3, in force since 31 July 2026, provides that hearings may not be more than three months apart unless the judge sets a longer interval with reasons — usually a lengthy expert examination. Article 76 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (Law No. 6098) — not of the procedural code — allows an interim payment (geçici ödeme) where the claimant produces convincing evidence supporting the claim and his financial position also requires it. On liability itself, see our guide on suing a hospital in Turkey.
Common questions about malpractice compensation in Turkey
What is the difference between material and moral compensation in Turkey?
Material compensation restores your finances: treatment costs, lost earnings, lost earning capacity, caregiver costs and, on a death, loss of support. Moral compensation answers the pain and sorrow. One is calculated by an actuary, the other set by the judge.
How does the court calculate damages for a permanent disability?
A medical board fixes the disability percentage and the fault ratio; an actuarial expert projects the earnings you will lose over your remaining active working life. Article 55 bars the judge from adjusting that figure because it looks high or low.
Does the legal interest on the compensation start immediately?
Not across the whole award, for incidents after 31 July 2026: interest then runs from the incident only for the period in which earnings are known, and from the judgment for the projected period; earlier incidents stay under the previous text of Article 55. Against a state hospital, article 55/2 applies the Code of Obligations to claims arising from administrative acts and actions, which on its face carries the split rule into full-remedy actions too; plead the start date expressly.
Can I claim if a doctor failed to diagnose a birth defect?
Possibly. The claim rests on a breach of the doctor's duty of care — Article 506 of the Code of Obligations requires faithful and careful performance — and on proof, through the expert reports, that the missed diagnosis caused a recoverable loss. What can be claimed turns on those reports, not on a fixed rule.
Is moral compensation used to punish the doctor financially?
No. Article 56 provides for an appropriate sum (uygun bir miktar) as moral compensation for harm to bodily integrity, fixed having regard to the particular circumstances of the case, and article 51 has the judge set the extent of compensation according to the circumstances and in particular the degree of fault. It compensates the harm suffered; it is neither a penalty nor a route to enrichment.
Do I have to travel to Türkiye to run the case?
Usually not. The claim runs under a power of attorney issued at a Turkish consulate or before a notary abroad with an apostille, and article 149 of the Code of Civil Procedure allows the court, at a party's request, to let that party or its lawyer take part in a hearing by video link.
No two malpractice files produce the same number. What can be settled in advance is which deadline governs, which defendant is right and which head of loss your facts support — answers that usually decide the case before an expert is appointed.
This guide is general information on Turkish law, not legal advice on your own matter. Rules and practice change; check the position before you act.