Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and are required to act with skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

Not every mistake made by an attorney can be considered legal malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damage. Let's review each of these elements.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to use their knowledge and expertise to treat patients, not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injury or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer must to prove that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that were bound by a fiduciary duty to act with a reasonable level of expertise and care. This can be demonstrated through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also have to show that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is usually referred to by the term negligence. Your attorney will compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the defendant's breach directly contributed to your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your attorney will use evidence such as your medical documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to demonstrate that the defendant's inability to uphold the standard of care in your case was the direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of treatment to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor doesn't meet the standards, and the failure results in an injury or medical malpractice, then negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of medical care should be in a particular case. Federal and state laws, as well as policies of the institute, help determine what doctors are required to provide for specific types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be proved that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element and it is imperative that it is established. If a doctor has to take an x-ray of a broken arm, they must place the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient suffers a permanent loss of usage of the arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims are based on the evidence that the lawyer made mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. For example when a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.

However, it's important to realize that not all mistakes made by attorneys are illegal. Mistakes in strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys have the ability in making judgment calls so long as they're reasonable.

Likewise, the law gives attorneys a wide range of options to refuse to conduct a discovery process on a client's behalf, as long as it was not negligent or unreasonable. The failure to discover crucial documents or facts, huenhue.net such as medical reports or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice attorney. Other examples of malpractice are a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as omitting to make a survival claim in a wrongful-death case or the consistent and persistent failure to contact clients.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be proved that if it weren't for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice case, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses that result from an attorney's actions. This can be proven in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney or billing records, and other documentation. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the harm caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as proximate causation.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. Some of the more common types of malpractice include the failure to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitations, failing to conduct a conflict-check or any other due diligence on a case, improperly applying law to a client's circumstance or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account an attorney's account, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

In most medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff will seek compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and losses, including medical and hospital bills, the cost of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can claim non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering or loss of enjoyment life, and emotional stress.

Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the losses caused by negligence on the part of the attorney while the latter is meant to deter future malpractice on the defendant's part.