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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

Not all mistakes made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show the breach of duty, obligation, causation, and damage. Let's examine each of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear by their training and expertise to treat patients and not cause harm to others. The duty of care is the foundation for a patient's right to compensation for injuries caused by medical malpractice. Your attorney can help you determine if your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether the breach caused injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you an obligation of fiduciary to act with reasonable skill and care. This can be proved by eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of caring by not adhering to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is commonly described as negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate what the defendant did to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Finally, your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in injury or loss to you. This is called causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence including your doctor's or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant’s failure to adhere to the standard of care was the sole cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that adhere to professional medical standards. If a physician fails to meet these standards and fails to do so results in injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that have similar training, certifications as well as experience and qualifications can help determine the quality of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws and institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors are required to provide for specific kinds of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or their duty of care, and that this breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is known as the causation element and it is vital that it is established. For example an injured arm requires an xray, the doctor should properly place the arm and put it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor fails to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss of usage of the arm, malpractice may have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For example when 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.

However, it's important to realize that not all mistakes made by lawyers constitute mistakes that constitute malpractice. Errors involving strategy and planning are not generally considered to be malpractice and lawyers have the ability to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery on behalf of their clients as long as the error was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Legal malpractice can be caused by failing to discover important documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims for example, like forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful death case or the frequent and extended failure to communicate with the client.

It's also important that it must be proven that, had it not been the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is crucial to find an experienced attorney.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice suit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses that result from an attorney's actions. This must be shown in a lawsuit with evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other evidence. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation.

The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the most common mistakes include: not meeting the deadline or statute of limitations; not performing a conflict check on a case; applying the law improperly to a client's circumstances; and breaching an obligation of fiduciary (i.e. the commingling of trust account funds with attorney's personal accounts) or a mishandling of the case, and not communicating with a client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, including medical and hospital bills, the cost of equipment required to aid in healing, as well as lost wages. Victims are also able to claim non-economic damages like pain and discomfort and loss of enjoyment their lives, and emotional stress.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases there are claims for punitive or compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for the loss resulting from the attorney's negligence, while the latter is intended to discourage future misconduct by the defendant.