Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

Not all mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's take a look at each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors take the oath of using their skill and training to cure patients, not cause additional harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice is based on the notion of duty of care. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty to care and whether these violations resulted in your injury or illness.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer needs to demonstrate that a medical professional has an official relationship with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to act with reasonable expertise and care. To prove that the relationship existed, malpractice you could require evidence like your records of your doctor-patient relationship or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors who have similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer will also need to establish that the medical professional violated their duty of caring in not adhering to the accepted standards in their field. This is often known as negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must show that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused the loss or injury you suffered. This is called causation. Your lawyer will use evidence like your doctor or patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony, to show that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standard of care was the sole cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that conform to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails live up to those standards and that failure results in injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of treatment should be in a specific situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors should 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 to take care of patients and that the breach was the sole cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation component, and it is vital that it is established. For example, if a broken arm requires an x-ray the doctor must fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor fails to do this and the patient loses their the use of the arm, malpractice may have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are built on the basis of evidence that the attorney committed mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the victim for example, malpractice if the attorney does not file the lawsuit within the statutes of limitations and the case being permanently lost.

It is crucial to realize that not all errors made by lawyers are considered to be malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys have the ability to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

The law also allows lawyers the right to refuse to conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligent. Failing to discover important documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements, is a potential example of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to include a survival count in a wrongful-death case or the frequent and prolonged failure to contact clients.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff has to prove that if not for the lawyer's negligent conduct they would have won their case. The plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be dismissed in the event that it is not proved. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. This is why it's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to win a legal malpractice lawsuit. In a lawsuit, this has to be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and the client. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate causation.

The causes of malpractice vary. The most frequent errors include: not meeting the deadline or statute of limitations; failing to conduct an investigation into a conflict in an issue; applying the law incorrectly to a client's situation; or breaking a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with an attorney's personal accounts), mishandling of the case, or failing to communicate with clients.

In most medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff will seek compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and expenses like medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages like pain and discomfort or loss of enjoyment in their lives, and emotional distress.

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