Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and they must behave with a high degree of skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

A mistake made by an attorney is legal malpractice. To demonstrate legal malpractice, an victim must prove that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear the oath of using their skills and experience to treat patients, and not cause additional harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries sustained due to medical malpractice is based on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and whether these violations resulted in your injury or illness.

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

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence. Your attorney will evaluate the defendant's conduct with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach of the defendant's duty caused direct injury or loss. This is referred to as causation, and your attorney will rely on evidence such as your medical records, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to adhere to the standard of care in your case was the direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of care to his patients which reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor does not meet those standards and that failure results in injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications, certifications and experience will assist in determining what the minimum standard of medical care should be in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies also determine what doctors should do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit, it must be shown that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element and it is vital that it be established. For instance, if a broken arm requires an x-ray, the doctor must place the arm and put it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the physician failed to do this and the patient was left with an unavoidable loss of function of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Lawyer malpractice claims are based on the evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that led to financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice attorneys are given plenty of discretion to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients as long as the decision was not arbitrary or negligent. Inability to find important documents or facts like medical or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice are a inability to include certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful death case, or the repeated and persistent failure to contact a client.

It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff needs to prove that, if not for the lawyer's negligent conduct, they would have prevailed. The plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected if it is not proven. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the attorney's actions have caused actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal Malpractice Lawsuit - Http://Alicetarot.Paul-It.Com/Board/Bbs/Board.Php?Bo_Table=Review&Wr_Id=305793 -. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and the client. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. The most frequent errors include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; failing to perform an investigation into a conflict in an instance; applying the law improperly to a client's particular situation; and breaking an obligation of fiduciary (i.e. merging funds from a trust account an attorney's account, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

In the majority of medical malpractice cases the plaintiff is seeking compensation damages. These compensations are intended to compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and expenses such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to help recover and lost wages. In addition, victims may claim non-economic damages, like suffering and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases often involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The first compensates victims for losses caused by negligence on the part of the attorney while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant's side.