Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are required to behave with care, diligence and expertise. Attorneys make mistakes, just like every other professional.

Some errors made by attorneys are malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved person must demonstrate that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's review each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath that they will use their skill and training to treat patients, and not to cause further harm. The duty of care is the foundation for the right of a patient to be compensated when they suffer injuries due to medical negligence. Your lawyer can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injuries or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer has to demonstrate that a medical professional had an legal relationship with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to exercise reasonable skill and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence such as your doctor-patient records or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will assess the conduct of the defendant with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the defendant's breach caused direct loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your doctor or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to demonstrate that the defendant's failure to meet the standards of care was the primary cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of care to his patients which conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor does not meet those standards and this results in injury, medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications or certifications will help determine what the appropriate standard of treatment should be in a particular case. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must do for specific types of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim it must be proven that the doctor violated his or duty of care and that the breach was a direct cause of injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is vital that it is established. For instance when 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 did not complete the procedure and the patient suffered a permanent loss of use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

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 injured party for example, if the attorney does not file the lawsuit within the statutes of limitations and results in the case being lost forever.

However, it's crucial to be aware that not all errors made by lawyers constitute illegal. Strategies and malpractice lawsuits planning mistakes are not typically considered to be the definition of malpractice. Attorneys have a wide decision-making discretion to make decisions as long as they're reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery for a client in the event that the failure was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Legal malpractice can be committed by not obtaining crucial documents or information, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are a failure to add certain claims or defendants such as failing to make a survival claim in a wrongful death case or the frequent and extended inability to contact a client.

It is also important to keep in mind the fact that the plaintiff must prove that, if not for the lawyer's careless conduct they would have prevailed. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice will be dismissed when it isn't proven. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is crucial to find an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This should be proved in a lawsuit through evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney, billing records and other documentation. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as the proximate cause.

It can happen in a variety of ways. Some of the most common mistakes are: failing to meet the deadline or statute of limitations; failing to conduct the necessary conflict checks on an issue; applying the law incorrectly to a client's circumstances; and breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. the commingling of trust account funds with personal attorney accounts) and mishandling the case, and failing to communicate with a client.

In the majority of medical malpractice law firms cases the plaintiff will seek compensation damages. The compensations pay for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and losses such as medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain, loss of enjoyment of their lives, and emotional anxiety.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases there are claims for punitive and compensatory damages. The former is intended to compensate victims for losses caused by the negligence of the attorney while the latter is intended to prevent future mistakes on the defendant's part.