Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and they must act with a high degree of skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes just like any other professional.

The mistakes made by lawyers are a result of malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved person must demonstrate obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to use their education and expertise to treat patients and not cause harm to others. The duty of care is the foundation for the right of patients to receive compensation when they suffer injuries due to medical malpractice. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor breached the duty of care and if the breach resulted in injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional you hired owed the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors who have similar educational, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty to care by not adhering to the accepted standards in their field. This is often known as negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in damage or loss to you. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's failure adhere to the standard of care was the sole cause of the injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor owes patients duties of care that adhere to the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor fails to adhere to these 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, certifications and experience will help determine what the appropriate standard of care is in a particular circumstance. Federal and state laws and institute policies also define what doctors must provide for lawsuits specific kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit, it must be proven that the doctor acted in violation of his or her duty of care and that the violation was a direct reason for an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation component, and it is essential to establish. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray, the doctor must properly set the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient suffers a permanent loss in usage of the arm, malpractice could be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney committed mistakes that led to financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It's important to know that not all mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. Strategies and planning errors are not typically considered to be the definition of malpractice. Attorneys have a broad range of discretion in making decisions so long as they're in the right place.

The law also allows lawyers ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery for a client as long as the error was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Failure to uncover important documents or facts like medical reports or witness statements, is a potential example of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice could be a inability to include certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to file a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit, or the repeated and long-running failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important to note that it has to be proven that, if not the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for smithfield malpractice law firm will be denied. This makes the process of bringing legal parsons malpractice attorney lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice suit, the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses that result from the actions of an attorney. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the client and attorney. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as proximate causation.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. The most frequent kinds of malpractice are: lawsuits failing to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitations, failure to perform a conflict check or any other due diligence on the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. the commingling of trust account funds with attorney's personal accounts) and mishandling the case, or failing to communicate with the client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve 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. Victims may also claim non-economic damages, such as pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional stress.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases, there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for losses caused by the attorney's negligence, while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant.