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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and they must behave with skill, diligence and care. However, like all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

The mistakes made by an attorney constitutes an act of malpractice. To demonstrate legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's review each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to apply their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not cause additional harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice rests on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions breached the duty of medical care and if the breach caused injury or illness.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer has to establish that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that had a fiduciary obligation to exercise an acceptable level of skill 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 must also show that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the defendant's conduct with what a reasonable person would take in the same scenario.

Then, your lawyer has to demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in your loss or injury. This is called causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your medical or patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to adhere to the standard of care was the sole reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of care for his patients that conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor does not meet those standards and fails to do so causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have similar training, expertise and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of medical care should be in a specific situation. State and federal laws, along with institute policies, help define what doctors are expected to do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case it must be proven that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation factor and it is essential that it is established. For instance, if a broken arm requires an x-ray the doctor should properly set the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss of usage of the arm, malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims built on the basis of evidence that the attorney made mistakes that led to financial losses for the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever the person who was injured could bring legal malpractice lawyer lawsuits.

However, it's important to realize that not all errors made by attorneys constitute illegal. Strategy and planning errors are not typically considered to be misconduct. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion in making decisions as long as they're in the right place.

The law also gives attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery for a client, so long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice is committed when a lawyer fails to find important documents or information, 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 an unjustly-dead case or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember that it has to be proven that, if not for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. For this reason, it's crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This can be proven in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney as well as billing records and other documentation. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer could have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate cause.

It can happen in a variety of ways. The most frequent mistakes include: not meeting a deadline or statute of limitations; failing to conduct an examination of a conflict on cases; applying law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's situation; or breaking an obligation of fiduciary (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account with the attorney's own accounts or handling a case improperly and not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

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

In many legal malpractice cases, there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The former compensates a victim for losses resulting from the negligence of an attorney, while the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.