Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients and are required to act with a high degree of skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.

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

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear the oath of using their skill and training to cure patients, not to cause further harm. The duty of care is the basis for the right of a patient to be compensated if they are injured by medical negligence. Your attorney can help you determine if the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and if the breach caused injury or illness to you.

Your lawyer must prove that the medical professional owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable skill and care. To prove that the relationship existed, you could require evidence like your doctor-patient records or eyewitness testimony, Malpractice Attorney as well as experts from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer will also have to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care in not adhering to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is commonly called negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

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

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of treatment to his patients that conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor fails to meet the standards, and the result is an injury that is medically negligent, negligence may occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have similar training, certificates as well as experience and qualifications can help determine the appropriate level of care in a given situation. State and federal laws, as well as institute policies, define what doctors are expected to do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case, it must be shown that the doctor breached his or duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is vital that it is established. For instance, if a broken arm requires an xray the doctor should properly set the arm and then place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor fails to do this and the patient is left with a permanent loss of usage of the arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims based on the evidence that the lawyer made mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the victim when, for instance, the attorney is unable to file a lawsuit within the prescribed time and this results in the case being forever lost.

However, it's important to understand that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Errors involving strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice and lawyers have a lot of latitude to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys the right to conduct discovery on behalf of a client's behalf, as long as the action was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be committed by failing to discover important documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to add certain defendants or claims, for instance forgetting a survival count for wrongful death cases or the inability to communicate with clients.

It's also important to keep in mind that it has to be proven that but for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. For this reason, it's important to choose a seasoned attorney to represent you.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses that result from the actions of the attorney. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be demonstrated using evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and client. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate cause.

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

Medical Malpractice attorney suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses and losses, such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovery, and loss of wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages like discomfort and pain and loss of enjoyment their lives, as well as emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases often involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The first is meant to compensate the victim for the losses caused by the attorney's negligence while the latter is meant to discourage future malpractice by the defendant's side.