Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary connection with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with care, diligence and expertise. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

The mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show obligation, breach of obligation, causation, and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to apply their skill and training to cure patients, not cause additional harm. Duty of care is the foundation for the right of patients to receive compensation if they are injured by medical malpractice. Your lawyer can help determine if the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and whether the breach caused injuries or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer must to show that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you, in which they have a fiduciary obligation to exercise a reasonable level of competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the standards of practice that are accepted in their field. This is often referred to as negligence. Your attorney will compare the defendant's behavior with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach by the defendant directly contributed to your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your medical or patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's failure meet the standards of care was the sole cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor owes patients duties of care that are consistent with the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor fails to meet those standards, and the result is an injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who have similar training, certifications and skills can help determine the standard of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws, along with guidelines from the institute, help define what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the evidence must prove that the doctor violated his or her duty to care and that the breach was a direct reason for an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component, and it is vital that it is established. For instance in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray, the doctor must properly fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor is unable to perform this, and the patient suffers a permanent loss of the use of the arm, malpractice lawyers may have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney made errors that resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims may be brought by the party who suffered the loss in the event that, for instance, the attorney fails to file the lawsuit within the statutes of limitations and this results in the case being permanently lost.

It is important to recognize that not all errors made by attorneys constitute mistakes that constitute malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning are not generally considered to be malpractice and lawyers have lots of freedom to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.

The law also allows lawyers considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of clients as long as the error was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Inability to find important information or documents like medical reports or statements of witnesses or medical reports, could be an instance of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to include a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit, or the repeated and prolonged inability to contact the client.

It's also important that it must be established that if it weren't the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the 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 lawyer claims a challenge. This is why it's important to choose a seasoned 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 suit. This should be proved in a lawsuit using evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other documents. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate cause.

It can happen in many different ways. Some of the most common errors include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; failing to perform an examination of a conflict on an instance; applying the law improperly to a client's specific circumstances; and violating the fiduciary duty (i.e. merging funds from a trust account the attorney's own accounts as well as not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

In the majority of medical malpractice cases the plaintiff will seek compensatory damages. They compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses and malpractice lawsuit losses, like hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment needed to aid in recovery, and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages such as discomfort and pain as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional suffering.

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