Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary connection with their clients and are expected to act with care, diligence and ability. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Every mistake made by an attorney is malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the victim must prove that there was breach of duty, causation, breach 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 experience to treat patients and not cause further harm. Duty of care is the foundation for a patient's right to compensation when they suffer injuries due to medical negligence. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty to care and if these breaches caused you injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer will need to demonstrate that a medical professional had an official relationship with you, in which they were bound by a fiduciary duty to act with an acceptable level of expertise and care. Proving that this relationship existed could require evidence like your records of your doctor-patient relationship or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer will also have to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty to care by failing to follow the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence. Your attorney will examine the defendant's actions to what a reasonable person would do in the same circumstance.

Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's negligence led directly to your loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence such as your doctor-patient records, witness statements and expert testimony to demonstrate that the defendant's failure to meet the standard of care in your case was the direct cause of your loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of treatment to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor fails to adhere to these standards and this causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have similar training, certifications as well as experience and qualifications can help determine the quality of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also define what doctors must do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit, it must be proven that the doctor breached his or her duty to care and that the violation was a direct reason for an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is essential to prove it. If a doctor has to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a cast and properly set it. If the physician failed to complete the procedure and the patient was left with an irreparable loss of use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that the attorney's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the victim when, for instance, the lawyer fails to file the suit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations and this results in the case being permanently lost.

It's important to recognize that not all mistakes by lawyers are considered to be malpractice. Strategies and mistakes aren't usually considered to be a violation of the law attorneys are given lots of freedom to make judgement calls so long as they're reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of a client, so long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligence. The failure to discover crucial information or documents like witness statements or medical reports could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include the failure to include certain defendants or claims, like not noticing a survival count in the case of wrongful death, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff needs to prove that if not for the lawyer's careless conduct, they would have prevailed. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice will be dismissed if it's not proved. This is why it's difficult to bring an action for legal malpractice. Therefore, it's crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice case, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses resulting from the actions of an attorney. In a lawsuit, this needs to be demonstrated using evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and client. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is referred to as proximate cause.

It can happen in many different ways. The most frequent kinds of malpractice attorney are: failing to adhere to a deadline, which includes the statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a check on conflicts or any other due diligence on the case, not applying the law to the client's situation or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust funds with attorney's personal accounts) and mishandling a case, and not communicating with the client.

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

In many legal malpractice cases, there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for the loss resulting from the negligence of an attorney, while the latter is intended to deter any future malpractice committed by the defendant.