Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are expected to conduct themselves with care, diligence and competence. However, like all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

Not every mistake made by an attorney constitutes an act of malpractice. To prove legal negligence the aggrieved party must prove the duty, breach of obligation, causation, and damage. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath that they will use their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not cause additional harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical de queen malpractice attorney is based on the concept of the duty of care. Your attorney can help you determine if your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and if these breaches resulted in injuries or illness to you.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer needs to prove that a medical professional has an official relationship with you in which they have a fiduciary obligation to exercise reasonable expertise and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence such as the records of your doctor-patient, eyewitness statements and expert testimony from doctors with similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer must also show that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not living up to the accepted standards of care in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your attorney will examine the defendant's actions with what a reasonable person would perform in the same situation.

Then, your lawyer has to show that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in the loss or injury you suffered. This is called causation. Your attorney will use evidence, such as your doctor/patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony to prove that the defendant’s failure to meet the standard of care was the primary reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care for his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor fails adhere to these standards and the failure causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications and experience, as well as certifications and certificates will aid in determining what the best standard of medical care should be in a particular circumstance. Federal and state laws, as well as policies of the institute, help determine what doctors are required to provide for specific types of patients.

To be successful in a malpractice case the evidence must prove that the doctor acted in violation of his or her duty of care and that this violation was the primary cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element and it is imperative that it be established. For instance when a broken 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 do this and the patient loses their the use of their arm, malpractice could have taken place.

Causation

Attorney saline malpractice lawsuit claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's errors caused financial losses to the client. Legal galax malpractice Lawsuit claims can be filed by the person who was injured for example, if the lawyer is unable to file a lawsuit within the timeframe of the statute of limitations and results in the case being forever lost.

It's important to recognize that not all mistakes by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not usually considered to be malpractice attorneys are given the ability to make judgment calls 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 failure was not unreasonable or negligence. Legal malpractice can be triggered by not obtaining crucial documents or evidence, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to file a survival count in a case of wrongful death, or the repeated and long-running inability to contact clients.

It is also important to remember that it must be proved that but the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the case. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff is rejected if it is not proven. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice lawsuit the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses caused by the actions of an attorney. This should be proved in a lawsuit with evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other evidence. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the most common kinds of malpractice are the failure to adhere to a deadline, which includes a statute of limitations, failure to conduct a conflict check or any other due diligence on the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. the commingling of trust account funds with personal attorney accounts), mishandling of the case, or failing to communicate with clients.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. The compensations pay for out-of-pocket expenses as well as losses such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to help recover and lost wages. Victims can also seek non-economic damages such as discomfort and pain or loss of enjoyment in their lives, and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases usually include claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the losses caused by the negligence of the attorney, while the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.