Medical Malpractice Compensation in Türkiye: The Heads of Damage and How Quantum Is Fixed

Turkish law prescribes no tariff, no scale and no benchmark for a medical malpractice award. What the Turkish Code of Obligations (No. 6098) supplies is a list of heads of damage — treatment costs, loss of earnings, loss of earning capacity, the shaking of one’s economic future, funeral expenses and loss of support, alongside non-pecuniary damages — together with a set of rules for calculating them. The figure under each head is then established individually, on the evidence in that file, in practice through a court-appointed expert calculation under Article 266 of the Code of Civil Procedure (No. 6100), and adjusted by the judge under Articles 51 and 52 of the Code of Obligations. A quoted “average” or “typical” Turkish malpractice award is not a figure the law produces.

That is why the useful question is never “how much do these cases pay?” but “which heads does my loss fall under, and what evidence fixes each of them?” This guide answers that second question. It is the compensation half of our main guide to medical malpractice law in Türkiye, which deals with the questions that come first — what counts as malpractice, the basis of liability, the correct forum, the limitation periods, and the mandatory mediation step that precedes a consumer-court claim. Here the subject is the money: the heads of damage and their statutory bases, how the court arrives at a number, what reduces an award, and from what date interest runs.

The Heads of Damage

Two provisions carry almost all the pecuniary heads. Article 54 governs bodily injury; Article 53 governs death. Both open by saying that the damages are “in particular” (özellikle) those listed — the wording makes each list illustrative, not exhaustive, so a loss that plainly flows from the injury is not excluded merely because it does not match one of the labels. Non-pecuniary damages sit apart, under Article 56, and are governed by a discretion rather than a calculation.

Head of damage	Legal basis	What it covers	How it is proved
Treatment costs (tedavi giderleri)	TBK Art. 54, item 1	Medical, surgical, rehabilitation and care costs incurred because of the failure, and the cost of care the condition will continue to require	Invoices and receipts, the medical file, expert opinion on what further treatment and care the prognosis demands
Loss of earnings (kazanç kaybı)	TBK Art. 54, item 2	Income actually lost during the period of incapacity	Payroll, tax and social-security records; accounts and declarations for the self-employed
Loss or reduction of earning capacity	TBK Art. 54, item 3	The lasting impairment of the ability to earn, projected across working life	A medical determination of the degree of impairment, then an expert calculation applying it to proved income
Shaking of the economic future (ekonomik geleceğin sarsılması)	TBK Art. 54, item 4	Damage to the claimant’s standing in working life that a measured capacity loss does not capture — where the same work becomes harder to obtain, keep or perform	Evidence of the occupation and its demands, and of how the injury affects employability in that field
Funeral expenses (cenaze giderleri)	TBK Art. 53, item 1	Fatal cases	Invoices and receipts
Treatment costs and capacity losses before death	TBK Art. 53, item 2	Where death was not immediate: the treatment costs and the capacity losses suffered in the interval	The medical file and the costs incurred for that period
Loss of support (destekten yoksun kalma)	TBK Art. 53, item 3	The support the deceased in fact provided to those who lost it	Proof that support was in fact given, the deceased’s income, and the period over which it would have continued
Non-pecuniary damages — the patient	TBK Art. 56/1	An appropriate sum where bodily integrity is injured	Not a calculation: the judge weighs the particular features of the event, on the medical and personal evidence
Non-pecuniary damages — relatives	TBK Art. 56/2	An appropriate sum to the relatives where the bodily harm is grave, or in cases of death	The gravity of the harm and the relationship as it actually stood
Redress for infringement of personality rights	TBK Art. 58	A separate basis from Art. 56; under Art. 58/2 the judge may order a different form of redress instead of or in addition to money — in particular a judgment condemning the infringement and an order that it be published	Depends on the infringement alleged

Loss of support is defined by support, not by kinship

Article 53 gives the claim to “persons deprived of the deceased’s support” (ölenin desteğinden yoksun kalan kişiler). The statute sets out no list restricting it to a spouse, children, or legal heirs. Whether a claimant qualifies is therefore a question of fact — did the deceased in fact provide support, and has the claimant in fact lost it — rather than a question of family status. The corollary is evidential: the claim stands or falls on being able to show the support as it actually operated, and for how long it would have continued.

There is no punitive head

Turkish law recognises no punitive, exemplary or aggravated damages. Article 51 measures compensation by the loss and the circumstances of the case, not by the culpability of the defendant considered as something to be punished. Article 55 reinforces the point from the other direction: the compensation as calculated may not be increased or decreased on equity grounds by reference to its amount. The number that the heads and the evidence produce is the number, and it cannot be trimmed because it looks large or topped up because it looks small.

How the Court Fixes the Amount

The burden — and where proof runs out

Article 50/1 places the burden of proving both the loss and the defendant’s fault on the injured party. That is the ordinary rule, and it is why a malpractice file is an exercise in document assembly long before it is an exercise in advocacy.

Article 50/2 is the safety valve. Where the exact amount of the loss cannot be fully proved, the judge determines it equitably, having regard to the ordinary course of events and to the measures the injured party took. This is the statutory hook for judicial estimation, and it matters most for the heads that are inherently forward-looking — future care, future capacity loss, the duration of support. It is not, however, a licence to plead a round number and hope: the claimant must still put the court in a position to estimate.

The calculation rules — and what may not be deducted

Article 55/1 governs how loss-of-support and bodily-injury damages are computed. Three things follow from it.

First, they are calculated according to the provisions of the Code and the principles of liability law — not by reference to any external tariff.

Second, and this catches many claimants by surprise in the wrong direction, social-security payments that cannot be recouped in whole or in part, and payments not made with the purpose of performance, may not be taken into account in determining the damages and may not be deducted from the loss or from the compensation. The common assumption that everything received from a social-security institution or from a well-wisher is simply netted off the award is, for that defined category, the opposite of what the provision says.

Third, as noted above, the calculated figure may not be adjusted up or down on equity grounds by reference to its size.

The practical reading of Article 55 is that the award is built, not negotiated down. Each head is proved, calculated, and then either stands or is reduced only on the specific statutory grounds — not smoothed toward a figure that feels reasonable.

Scope, mode of payment, and the annuity option

Article 51/1 gives the court power to fix both the scope and the mode of payment of the compensation, taking account of the requirements of the situation and in particular the gravity of the fault. The mode of payment is not a formality: under Article 51/2, where the court orders payment in the form of an annuity or periodic income (irat biçiminde) rather than a lump sum, the debtor is obliged to provide security. In a case of catastrophic, lifelong injury, the form the award takes can matter as much to a claimant as its headline size.

Pleading a figure you cannot yet know

Malpractice quantum is rarely knowable when the claim is filed — the prognosis is unsettled, the degree of impairment has not been determined, and the expert has not reported. Article 107 of the Code of Civil Procedure is built for exactly this. Where the claimant cannot be expected to state the amount fully and precisely at the date of filing, or where it is impossible, the claim may be brought stating the legal relationship and a minimum amount or value (belirsiz alacak davası). Once the amount becomes determinable from the opponent’s information or from the investigation, the judge sets a peremptory two-week period (kesin süre) before the close of the investigation in which the claimant may state the claim fully and precisely — without being caught by the prohibition on extending the claim.

Getting this wrong is expensive in a way that has nothing to do with the medicine. A claim pleaded as a fixed sum, at a moment when the loss could not honestly be quantified, can leave the balance of a proved loss unrecoverable.

The same heads on both tracks

Because the forum in a malpractice case depends on where the treatment took place, it matters that the heads do not change with the forum.

• Against a public institution. Article 55/2 expressly extends the Code’s compensation provisions to claims and actions concerning damage arising from the partial or total loss of bodily integrity, or a person’s death, caused by any kind of administrative act or action and other causes for which the administration is responsible. The heads under Articles 53, 54 and 56 therefore apply in a full-remedy action just as they do in a civil claim.
• Against a private provider. The relationship is contractual, and Article 112 makes the debtor liable to compensate unless it proves that no fault can be attributed to it — a reversal of the ordinary burden on the fault element. The bridge to the compensation heads is Article 114/2: the provisions on tort liability apply by analogy to cases of breach of contract.

Contributory Fault and Reduction

Reduction of an award is governed by Article 52, whose marginal heading is simply “Reduction” (İndirilmesi).

Under Article 52/1, where the injured party consented to the act causing the loss, contributed to the occurrence or the aggravation of the loss, or worsened the position of the person liable, the judge may reduce the compensation or remove it entirely. In a medical context the arguments that surface here are familiar: a patient who concealed relevant history, disregarded post-operative instructions, or did not return for follow-up when told to. Note the breadth of the discretion — it runs all the way to extinguishing the claim — and note equally that no tariff, percentage or scale governs it. A reduction is a judicial assessment on the facts, not the application of a rate.

Article 52/2 is a separate ground and is often confused with the first. It is an equity provision, and its two conditions are cumulative: where a person who caused the loss by slight fault would fall into poverty by paying and equity so requires, the judge may reduce the award. It concerns the payer’s circumstances, not the patient’s conduct.

Consent, incidentally, is where contributory fault meets the informed-consent question that decides so many Turkish malpractice files. Consent that was never properly informed is not the consent Article 52/1 contemplates, which is one reason the consent documentation ends up doing double duty — on liability and on quantum.

Interest: When It Starts, and at What Rate

Interest is not a footnote. In a case that takes years to run, the date default begins can be worth as much as an entire head of damage — and that date is not the same on every track.

On the tort side, Article 117/2 puts the debtor in default on the date the act was committed, with no notice required. Default interest therefore runs from the date of the wrongful act, not from the date of the claim and not from the date of judgment.

On the administrative side, Article 117/2 is not the operative rule. Article 55/2 extends the Code’s compensation provisions to damage caused by administrative acts and actions, but the date from which interest is awarded in a full-remedy action is governed by administrative procedure and the settled practice of the administrative courts, and should not be assumed to follow the tort rule. It is a point to establish on the facts of the individual claim rather than to take for granted.

On the contractual side, Article 117/1 applies: the debtor of a due debt falls into default upon the creditor’s notice. Notice is dispensed with only where a performance date was fixed jointly or by a contractually reserved unilateral notification. Against a private hospital, therefore, default and default interest generally require a notice rather than running automatically from the date of treatment.

The rate is governed by Article 120/1: where the parties have agreed none, the annual default rate is determined by the legislation in force on the date the interest debt arose. A contractually agreed default rate is capped by Article 120/2 at 100% above the statutory rate. The rate-setting legislation is Law No. 3095, whose Article 1 sets a statutory rate of 12% per annum but empowers the President to fix it monthly, to reduce it to a tenth or to double it. That power has been exercised: the statutory rate has been 24% per annum since 1 June 2024, set by Presidential Decision No. 8485 of 20 May 2024, published in the Official Gazette of 21 May 2024, No. 32552. In commercial matters, Article 2/2 allows the Central Bank’s short-term advance rate applied on 31 December of the preceding year to be claimed instead where it is higher. Article 3 forbids compound interest on statutory and default interest, and Article 121/3 of the Code of Obligations forbids running default interest on default interest.

A change is imminent for non-contractual claims. By decision of 22 July 2025 (E.2024/24, K.2025/164), published in the Official Gazette of 1 December 2025, No. 33094, the Constitutional Court annulled Article 1 of Law No. 3095 in respect of non-contractual obligations (sözleşmeden kaynaklanmayan borç ilişkileri). The annulment takes effect on 1 September 2026. Because tort-based and administrative malpractice claims are non-contractual, the statutory rate rule ceases to apply to them from that date. Contractual claims are unaffected by the annulment. The position applicable to a non-contractual claim from 1 September 2026 should be confirmed against the legislation in force at the relevant time.

What Evidence Actually Drives Quantum

Expert evidence is not an optional refinement in these cases; it is the statutory mechanism by which the number is produced. Article 266 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires the court, on a party’s application or of its own motion, to obtain a bilirkişi (court-appointed expert) opinion where resolving the dispute requires special or technical knowledge outside the law. The same article draws the boundary: an expert may not be used for matters resolvable by general knowledge and experience, or by the legal knowledge required of the judge’s own office, and persons with legal training cannot be appointed unless they document a separate, non-legal expertise. The expert measures and calculates; the judge decides the law.

Working backwards from that, the documents that move quantum are narrower than most claimants expect:

• The complete medical file — records, imaging, operative notes, nursing charts and the consent documentation. It drives liability first, but it also fixes the factual basis on which impairment and future care are assessed.
• A determination of the degree of impairment. Nothing under Article 54, item 3 can be calculated until the lasting loss of function is established medically.
• Proof of income, in an admissible form. Payroll records, tax returns and social-security records. For the self-employed and for claimants whose real earnings exceed their declared earnings, this is routinely the weakest link in an otherwise strong case.
• Evidence of the support in fact given, in a fatal case — because Article 53 asks what was actually provided, not who is on the family tree.
• Costs already incurred, receipted. Treatment costs are the most straightforwardly provable head and the most frequently under-documented.
• A prognosis addressing the future — further surgery, rehabilitation, assistive equipment, attendant care. Without it, the future-care component has nothing to rest on and Article 50/2 has little to work with.

Who Actually Pays

A separate question from how much is from where, and Turkish law puts a compulsory insurance layer behind the physician.

Under Supplementary Article 12 of Law No. 1219, physicians, dentists and specialists working in public health institutions must insure against damages claimable from them for medical malpractice and against their institution’s recourse, with half the premium paid by them and half from the revolving fund or institutional budget. Those in private institutions or in independent practice must hold professional financial liability insurance; for employed staff the private institution takes out the policy, pays half the premium, and may not deduct it from the employee’s pay. The coverage amounts and procedures are set by the insurance regulator after taking the Ministry of Health’s opinion, and an administrative fine is imposed for each uninsured person where the compulsory insurance is not taken out.

That insurance has a contractual ceiling. Under the amending communiqué published in the Official Gazette of 7 August 2025, No. 32979, in force since 1 November 2025, maximum coverage amounts per event are set in a schedule and, in every case, the amount of compensation payable under the contract cannot exceed 9.000.000 TL.

That ceiling is a limit on the insurer’s contractual liability, not a cap on what a court may award against a provider. It is regularly misreported as though it were the maximum recoverable — as is the far lower per-event figure from earlier versions of the communiqué, which has been superseded. The provider’s liability to the patient is fixed by the heads of damage and the evidence, not by the policy limit.

In the public sector, Supplementary Article 18 of Law No. 3359 completes the chain. Once the administration has paid the compensation ordered by a final judgment, it steps into the place of the insured healthcare professional and claims the compensation — including the attorney’s fee and litigation costs it paid — from that professional’s compulsory malpractice insurer, in proportion to the professional’s fault and within the limits of the cover. Whether the administration may seek recourse against the professional at all, and in what amount, is decided by the Professional Liability Board within one year, having regard to whether the professional acted contrary to the requirements of the post and to the degree of fault; for state universities a six-month decision by the university applies, and the Board’s decisions may be challenged before the Ankara Regional Administrative Court.

The point for a patient is a narrow one but worth stating plainly: this machinery is internal. Patients do not apply to the Professional Liability Board, and the Board does not fix or award their compensation. It allocates the cost after the patient has already been paid.

What This Means in Practice

Compensation in a Turkish malpractice case is built head by head, and the file is won or lost on documents assembled long before any expert is appointed.

• Ask which head, not how much. Every claimed sum must sit under Article 53, 54 or 56, and the head determines the proof required. A loss with no head and no evidence is not a claim.
• Document income as carefully as injury. Capacity loss and loss of support are calculated on proved income. An impeccable medical case attached to unprovable earnings produces a smaller award than the harm warrants.
• Do not assume payments received are netted off. Article 55 bars social-security payments that cannot be recouped, and payments not made by way of performance, from being taken into account in fixing the loss or deducted from the compensation.
• Watch the interest date. In tort it runs from the act itself; on the contractual track it generally requires a notice. And for non-contractual claims, confirm the position applying from 1 September 2026.
• Treat the policy limit as what it is. The compulsory insurance ceiling constrains the insurer, not the court.
• Remember the criminal overlap. Where the same facts amount to an offence carrying a longer limitation period under criminal law, that longer period can apply to the compensation claim under Article 72 of the Code of Obligations.

The heads of damage are fixed by statute and the calculation rules are public; what varies from file to file is the quality of the record put in front of the expert. That is the part a claimant can still influence, and it is the part that decides the figure. The wider framework in which these claims sit — liability, forum, limitation and the pre-action steps — is covered in our guide to medical malpractice law in Türkiye and across our health law practice.