Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with diligence, care and competence. Attorneys make mistakes just like any other professional.

Every mistake made by an attorney constitutes malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the aggrieved person must demonstrate duty, breach, causation and damage. Let's examine each of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors take the oath of using their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not cause additional harm. Duty of care is the foundation for a patient's right to compensation if they are injured by medical negligence. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty of care and if the breach resulted in injury or illness.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer needs to prove that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that owed you a fiduciary responsibility to perform their duties with reasonable competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence such as the records of your doctor and patient or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors with similar experience, education and training.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the defendant's conduct to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's breach directly contributed to your loss or injury. This is known as causation, and your lawyer will make use of evidence such as your doctor-patient reports, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to live up to the standard of care in your case was the direct cause of your loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor has a duty to patients of care that conform to the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor does not adhere to these standards and the failure results in an injury or medical malpractice, then negligence could result. Expert testimony from medical professionals who possess similar qualifications, malpractice training and skills can help determine the standard of care in a particular situation. Federal and state laws, along with policies of the institute, help determine what doctors are required to provide for specific types of patients.

To win a malpractice case it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation element and it is essential that it is established. For example, if a broken arm requires an xray the doctor must set the arm and then place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor did not do this and the patient suffered an irreparable loss of use of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's errors caused financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost for ever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

However, it's important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys constitute mistakes that constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning errors are not typically considered to be negligence. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion to make decisions as long as they're reasonable.

In addition, the law allows attorneys considerable leeway to fail to conduct a discovery process on behalf of a client, so provided that the decision was not negligent or unreasonable. Inability to find important facts or documents, such as witness statements or medical reports could be a sign of legal malpractice law firm. Other instances of malpractice include the inability to add certain defendants or claims, such as not noticing a survival count in the case of wrongful death or the constant failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to note the fact that the plaintiff has to demonstrate that, if it weren't for the lawyer's careless conduct, they could have won their case. The claim of the plaintiff for malpractice will be rejected if it is not proven. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. In a lawsuit, this has to be demonstrated using evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and the client. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. Some of the more common kinds of malpractice are: failing to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitations, failing to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence of a case, improperly applying the law to the client's situation or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with an attorney's personal accounts) or mishandling an instance, and not communicating with a client.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for malpractice the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, for example hospital and medical bills, the cost of equipment needed to aid in recovery, and loss of wages. Victims can also seek non-economic damages like pain and discomfort, loss of enjoyment of their lives, and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for losses caused by negligence on the part of the attorney while the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice on the defendant's part.