Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are required to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility to their clients, and they are expected act with diligence, skill and care. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

The errors made by attorneys are a result of malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved party has to prove that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damage. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take the oath of using their expertise and knowledge to treat patients, and not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of duty of care. Your lawyer can help determine whether or not the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and whether these breaches caused injury or illness to you.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer has to establish that a medical professional had an agreement with you that have a fiduciary obligation to exercise reasonable expertise and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient records and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also need to show that the medical professional breached their duty of caring by failing to follow the accepted standards of their field. This is often known as negligence. Your lawyer will assess the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's breach directly caused your loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's inability to meet the standards of care was the direct cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of treatment to his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor does not meet these standards and that failure causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, attorneys qualifications, certifications and experience will aid in determining what the best standard of care should be in a particular case. State and federal laws, as well as institute policies, determine what doctors are required to do for certain kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice case, it must be shown that the doctor breached his or his duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation component and it is imperative to establish. If a physician has to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient loses their usage of the arm, malpractice could be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that resulted in financial losses to the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost for ever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning mistakes aren't usually considered to be a sign of malpractice lawyers. Attorneys have a broad range of discretion in making decisions, as long as they're rational.

The law also grants attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery for a client as long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Legal malpractice can be triggered by not obtaining crucial documents or evidence, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include the inability to add certain defendants or claims, such as failing to include a survival count for wrongful death cases, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important to note that it must be proved that but the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the case. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff will be dismissed if it's not proved. This makes it difficult to file a legal malpractice claim. It's crucial to hire 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 can be proven in a lawsuit using evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney, billing records and other documents. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as the proximate cause.

The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the more common kinds of malpractice are: failing to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitation, failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence check on a case, improperly applying law to a client's situation or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. commingling trust account funds with attorney's personal accounts) or a mishandling of a case, and not communicating with the client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensation damages. These compensations are intended to compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses like medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to help recover and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain and loss of enjoyment their lives, as well as emotional suffering.

Legal malpractice cases often involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The first is meant to compensate the victim for losses caused by the negligence of the attorney while the latter is intended to deter future malpractice on the part of the defendant.