Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and are required to act with diligence, skill and care. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.

The mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense the victim must demonstrate duty, breach of obligation, causation, as well as damages. Let's take a look at each one of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their training and expertise to treat patients and not to cause further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice is based on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions breached this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer must prove that the medical professional you hired owed an obligation of fiduciary to act with reasonable competence and care. This can be proved by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient records and expert testimony of doctors who have similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also have to establish that the medical professional breached their duty to care by failing to follow the accepted standards in their field. This is commonly called negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Then, your lawyer has to prove 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 doctor or Malpractice lawsuits patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standard of care was the main cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care to his patients which conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor malpractice lawsuits does not meet these standards and that failure causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications and experience, as well as certifications and certificates will assist in determining what the minimum standard of treatment should be in a specific situation. Federal and state laws, as well as institute policies, determine what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice case, it must be shown that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is crucial to prove it. If a physician has to take an x-ray of a broken arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient suffers a permanent loss in the use of the arm, malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that 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, which results in the case being lost for ever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

However, it's important to recognize that not all errors made by lawyers are a sign of malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice lawyers, and attorneys have lots of freedom to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also allows attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of a client, so long as the failure was not unreasonable or negligence. The failure to discover crucial details or documents, such as medical reports or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to submit a survival count in a wrongful-death case or the frequent and persistent inability to contact the client.

It's also important that it must be established that but for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.

Damages

In order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit, plaintiffs must show financial losses incurred by an attorney's actions. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proved with evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as proximate cause.

The causes of malpractice vary. The most frequent types of malpractice include: failing to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict-check or other due diligence check on a case, improperly applying the law to a client's case, breaching a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account with an attorney's own accounts, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, including medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. Victims are also able to claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional suffering.

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