Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

A mistake made by an attorney constitutes malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the victim must prove obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath to apply their skill and training to treat patients, not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice is based on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions breached the duty of medical care and if the breach resulted in your injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer will need to show that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that had a fiduciary obligation to exercise reasonable skill and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors with similar educational, experience and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by failing to adhere to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your attorney will assess the conduct of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Then, your lawyer has to show that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in the loss or injury you suffered. This is known as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure meet the standard of care was the direct cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of care to his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails to meet the standards, and the failure results in an injury that is medically negligent, negligence may occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who possess similar qualifications, training or experience can help determine the appropriate level of care in a given situation. State and federal laws, along with institute policies, determine what doctors are required to do for certain kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the evidence must prove that the doctor breached his or her duty to care and that the violation was the primary cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is essential that it is established. If a doctor needs to conduct an x-ray examination of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a cast and properly set it. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient is left with a permanent loss of the use of their arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are built on the basis of evidence that a lawyer made errors that resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be filed by the person who was injured for example, if the attorney does not file the lawsuit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations and the case being permanently lost.

It's important to know that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning mistakes do not usually constitute negligence. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion to make decisions as long as they're able to make them in a reasonable manner.

The law also allows attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of a client provided that the error was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Legal altoona malpractice lawsuit can be committed through the failure to uncover important documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include inability to include certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to include a survival count in a wrongful death case, or the repeated and prolonged inability to communicate with the client.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be established that, if not for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. This is why it's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions have caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit. In a lawsuit, this must be proven with evidence such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and client. 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 cause.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include the failure to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitations, failing to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence on the case, not applying the law to a client's case or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust account funds with personal attorney accounts) or mishandling the case, and not communicating with a client.

Medical sweetwater malpractice Lawyer lawsuits typically involve claims for compensation damages. They compensate the victim for the expenses out of pocket and losses, including medical and hospital bills, the cost of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. Additionally, victims may seek non-economic damages, like suffering and suffering or loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

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