Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients and lawsuits they must behave with a degree of diligence, skill and care. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

Some mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, lawsuits the aggrieved party must show obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath that they will use their knowledge and expertise to treat patients, and not to cause further harm. The duty of care is the foundation for patients' right to compensation for injuries caused by medical negligence. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor breached the duty of medical care and if these breaches resulted in injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer must to demonstrate that a medical professional had an official relationship with you in which they were bound by a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable skill and care. To prove that the relationship existed, you may require evidence such as the records of your doctor-patient, eyewitness statements and expert testimony from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer must also show that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the accepted standards of care in their field. This is often referred to as negligence, and your attorney will examine the defendant's actions to what a reasonable individual would take in the same scenario.

Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's negligence caused direct loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence, such as your doctor/patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to demonstrate that the defendant's failure to comply with the standard of care was the main cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that reflect professional medical standards. If a doctor does not adhere to these standards and that failure results in injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications, certifications and experience will aid in determining what the best standard of care should be in a particular situation. Federal and state laws, along with institute policies, determine what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be established that the doctor violated his or her duty to take care of patients and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component, and it is essential to establish. If a doctor is required to perform an x-ray on a broken arm, they have to put the arm in a cast and correctly set it. If the doctor was unable to do so and the patient suffered a permanent loss of the use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Lawyer malpractice lawyer claims are built on the basis of evidence that the attorney committed mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever and the victim can file legal malpractice claims.

It is crucial to realize that not all mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice, and attorneys have plenty of discretion to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they're reasonable.

In addition, the law allows attorneys the right to conduct a discovery process on the behalf of their clients, as long as the action was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice attorney is committed by not obtaining crucial documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice could be a failure to add certain defendants or claims for example, like forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful-death case or the frequent and extended failure to contact a client.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff has to show that if it wasn't for the lawyer's careless conduct, they would have won their case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses resulting from the actions of an attorney. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proved with evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as proximate causation.

It can happen in a variety of ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, including a statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence on a case, improperly applying the law to a client's case, breaching a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust account funds with attorney's personal accounts) or a mishandling of the case, and failing to communicate with a client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensatory damages. The compensations pay for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and losses such as hospital and medical bills, the cost of equipment to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can seek non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the losses caused by the attorney's negligence, while the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.