Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are expected to conduct themselves with diligence, care and expertise. Attorneys make mistakes, as do other professional.

Some mistakes made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. To prove legal negligence, the aggrieved must show duty, breach of obligation, causation, as well as damages. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their education and skills to cure patients and not cause further harm. The duty of care is the basis for the right of a patient to be compensated in the event of injury due to medical malpractice. Your attorney can help you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated the duty of care, and if the breach caused injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional you hired owed a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable skill and care. This can be proved through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records and expert testimony of doctors who have similar educational, experience and training.

Your lawyer must also show that the medical professional violated their duty of care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of practice in their field. This is commonly known as negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

In addition, your lawyer must show that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused injury or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure meet the standards of care was the main cause of the injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that conform to the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor fails to meet these standards and fails to do so causes injury, then medical malpractice Attorney and negligence may occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that have similar training, certifications and skills can help determine the appropriate level of care in a given situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors are required to provide for specific kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the evidence must prove that the doctor did not fulfill his or her duty of care and that this violation was the direct cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element, malpractice attorney and it is vital to prove it. If a physician has to perform an x-ray on an injured arm, they must place the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient suffers a permanent loss of the use of the arm, malpractice could be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the injured party if, for example, the lawyer is unable to file a lawsuit within the timeframe of the statute of limitations, which results in the case being permanently lost.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by lawyers constitute mistakes that constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning errors do not usually constitute negligence. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion to make decisions, as long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligent. Failure to uncover important details or documents like medical or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to include certain defendants or claims, like forgetting a survival count for a wrongful-death case or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember that it has to be proven that, if not the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This makes it difficult to file a legal malpractice claim. It's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice suit, plaintiffs must show financial losses incurred by an attorney's actions. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit through evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney along with billing records and other records. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is referred to as proximate cause.

It can happen in a variety of ways. The most frequent mistakes include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; not performing an investigation into a conflict in cases; applying law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's specific circumstances; and violating the fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts) or a mishandling of the case, and not communicating with a client.

In most medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff will seek compensatory damages. The compensations pay for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and expenses such as hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to aid in recovery and lost wages. In addition, the victims can be able to claim non-economic damages like pain and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The first compensates the victim for losses due to the negligence of the attorney while the latter is intended to discourage any future malpractice by the defendant's side.