Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are expected to act with diligence, care and competence. Attorneys make mistakes, just like every other professional.

Every mistake made by an attorney constitutes negligence. To prove negligence in a legal sense the person who was hurt must prove obligation, breach of obligation, causation, and damages. Let's look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to apply their skills and experience to treat patients and not cause additional harm. The duty of care is the basis for a patient's right to compensation in the event of injury due to medical negligence. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and if these breaches caused you injury or illness.

Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional you hired owed the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable skill and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence such as your records of your doctor-patient relationship or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors with similar qualifications, experience and education.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of their field. 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 called causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your doctor or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to show that the defendant’s failure to comply with the standard of care was the main cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of treatment to his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor doesn't meet those standards, and the result is an injury and/or medical malpractice, then negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications, certifications and experience will assist in determining what the minimum standard of treatment should be in a particular circumstance. Federal and state laws and institute policies also help determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.

To be successful in a malpractice case, it must be proven that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that the violation was the sole cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component, and it is vital to establish. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray the doctor must properly fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient suffers a permanent loss of the use of their arm, malpractice could be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors caused financial losses to the client. Legal malpractice claims may be brought by the person who was injured if, for example, the lawyer fails to file the suit within the prescribed time and results in the case being lost forever.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by attorneys are malpractice. Planning and strategy errors are not typically considered to be misconduct. Attorneys have a wide choice of discretion when it comes to making decisions as long as they're able to make them in a reasonable manner.

The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of a client in the event that the error was not unreasonable or negligence. Inability to find important information or documents like witness statements or medical reports, is a potential example of legal malpractice lawyer. Other instances of malpractice include failure to add certain claims or defendants such as omitting to submit a survival count in a wrongful death case or the continual and long-running failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to keep in mind the necessity for the plaintiff to prove that if not the lawyer's negligence they could have won their case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This makes it difficult to bring a legal malpractice claim. It's important to choose a seasoned attorney to represent you.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice law firms suit, the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses that result from the actions of the attorney. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other evidence. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is called proximate causation.

The causes of malpractice vary. The most frequent kinds of malpractice are the failure to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence of the case, not applying the law to the client's situation and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts) and mishandling an instance, and not communicating with the client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensation damages. The compensations pay for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and lawsuits losses such as hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to aid in recovery and lost wages. In addition, victims may be able to claim non-economic damages like suffering and suffering or loss of enjoyment life, and emotional stress.

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