Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

Not every mistake made by an attorney can be considered legal malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the aggrieved party has to prove that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's take a look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to apply their knowledge and expertise to cure patients, not causing further harm. Duty of care is the basis for a patient's right to compensation for injuries caused by medical negligence. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions breached the duty of care and whether these violations caused injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional you hired owed a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence such as the records of your doctor and patient or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors with similar experiences, education and malpractice lawsuit training.

Your lawyer will also have to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of care in their area of expertise. This is usually referred to by the term negligence. Your attorney will compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the breach of the defendant's duty directly contributed to your loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your attorney will rely on evidence like your doctor-patient documents, malpractice lawsuit witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to live up to the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care to his patients which reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor fails meet these standards and this results in injury, medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals with similar training, skills, certifications and experience will help determine what the appropriate standard of care should be in a specific situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also define what doctors must do for specific types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the evidence must prove that the doctor acted in violation of his or her duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is known as the causation factor and it is vital that it is established. For instance in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray, the doctor must fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient loses their the use of their arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims based on the evidence that the lawyer made mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. Legal malpractice claims may be brought by the injured party in the event that, for instance, the attorney is unable to file a lawsuit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever.

However, it's important to recognize that not all errors made by attorneys are mistakes that constitute malpractice. Strategy and planning errors do not usually constitute malpractice. 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 considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of their clients, so long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. The failure to discover crucial information or documents, such as medical reports or statements of witnesses, is a potential example of legal malpractice lawyer. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to make a survival claim in a wrongful-death case, or the repeated and prolonged failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be proved 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 rejected. This is why it's difficult to file a legal malpractice claim. It's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit, plaintiffs must show financial losses that result from an attorney's actions. In a lawsuit, this must be demonstrated using evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and client. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as proximate cause.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. Some of the more common types of malpractice include: failing to meet a deadline, such as the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict-check or any other due diligence on a case, improperly applying law to a client's situation and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account an attorney's account or handling a case improperly and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensation damages. These damages compensate the victim for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and losses such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, victims may claim non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases often involve claims for compensatory or punitive damages. The first compensates the victim for the damages caused by negligence on the part of the attorney and the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice on the defendant's part.