Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are required to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility to their clients and they must act with a high degree of skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.

A mistake made by an attorney can be considered an act of malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove the breach of duty, duty, causation and damage. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to use their education and experience to treat patients and not cause harm to others. The legal right of a patient to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice rests 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.

Your lawyer must establish that the medical professional was bound by an obligation of fiduciary to act with reasonable competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence such as the records of your doctor and patient, eyewitness statements and expert testimony from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer will also have to establish that the medical professional breached their duty to care in not adhering to the accepted standards in 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 take in the same scenario.

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

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care to his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a physician fails to live up to those standards and fails to do so results in injury, medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of care is in a particular situation. State and federal laws and institute policies also define what doctors must do for certain types of patients.

To be successful in a malpractice case, it must be proven that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the violation was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is known as the causation element and it is vital that it is established. If a doctor needs to take an x-ray of a broken arm, Hartford malpractice attorney they must put the arm in a cast and then correctly place it. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss of the use of the arm, malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes resulted in financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, leading to the case being lost forever and the victim can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not generally considered to be malpractice and lawyers have lots of freedom to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they're reasonable.

Likewise, the law gives attorneys a lot of discretion to conduct discovery on the behalf of clients, so long as the action was not unreasonable or negligent. Failing to discover important information or documents like medical reports or statements of witnesses can be a case of legal Hartford Malpractice Attorney. Other instances of malpractice include the failure to add certain defendants or claims, such as 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 necessity for the plaintiff to prove that if not due to the lawyer's negligent behavior they would have won their case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. This is why it's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit with evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney or billing records, and other evidence. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the more common kinds of malpractice are: failing to adhere to a deadline, which includes the statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence of the case, not applying the law to the client's situation or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. commingling trust account funds with an attorney's personal accounts) and mishandling the case, and not communicating with a client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. They compensate the victim for the expenses out of pocket and losses, including medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment that aids in recovering, and lost wages. Additionally, victims may seek non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional suffering.

In many legal malpractice cases there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The first compensates victims for losses caused by the attorney's negligence while the latter is intended to discourage any future richmond malpractice law firm on the part of the defendant.