Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are expected to conduct themselves with diligence, care and expertise. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.

Not all errors made by attorneys are a result of malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the aggrieved person must demonstrate obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath to apply their knowledge and expertise to treat patients, not cause additional harm. The duty of care is the basis for the right of patients to receive compensation in the event of injury due to medical negligence. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and if the breach caused injury or illness.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer has to prove that a medical professional had an agreement with you that owed you a fiduciary responsibility to perform their duties with a reasonable level of skill and care. This relationship may be proven through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors who have similar educational, experience and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will assess the conduct of the defendant with what a reasonable person would perform in the same situation.

Your lawyer must show that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused damage or loss to you. This is known as causation. Your attorney will rely on evidence like your medical reports, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to live up to the standard of care in your case was a 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 doesn't meet these standards, and the failure results in an injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could result. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications as well as experience and qualifications can help determine the quality of care for a specific situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must provide for specific kinds 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 sole cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component, and it is essential that it is established. For example an injured arm requires an xray, the doctor must properly place the arm and put it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor failed to do so and the patient suffered a permanent loss of function of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice Attorney lawsuits.

It is crucial to realize that not all mistakes by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice and lawyers have lots of freedom to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the error was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Failing to discover important details or documents like medical or Malpractice Attorney 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 an unjustly-dead case or the inability to communicate with clients.

It's also important that it has to be proven that but the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes it difficult to bring a legal malpractice claim. It is essential to choose 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 suit. This can be proven in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other evidence. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as proximate causation.

malpractice law firm can occur in many different ways. The most frequent errors include: not meeting the deadline or statute of limitations; failing to perform the necessary conflict checks on an issue; applying the law incorrectly to a client's particular situation; and breaking a fiduciary obligation (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account with an attorney's own accounts or handling a case improperly and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. These compensate the victim for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, for example medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. Victims can also seek non-economic damages such as pain and discomfort or loss of enjoyment in their lives, as well as emotional distress.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases, there are claims for punitive or compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for losses due to the negligence of the attorney while the latter is intended to discourage any future malpractice on the part of the defendant.