How to File a Medical Malpractice Case

A patient who finds an object foreign to her body, such as surgical clamps in her body after gall bladder surgery could make a claim for medical negligence. A successful lawsuit must prove the legal elements of medical negligence: duty, deviance from this duty, direct cause, and injury.

It is essential for our clients to establish a direct relationship between the breach of duty and the damage, known as proximate causation.

Causes of Injury

A medical negligence case may be filed by the person who has been injured or a person who is legally authorized to act on their behalf. This can be the spouse or adult child, parent, guardian or administrator of an estate belonging to a deceased patient, depending on the circumstances. The defendant in a lawsuit for medical malpractice is the health care provider. This could be a nurse, doctor, therapist or any other licensed health care professional.

Expert testimony is often required in cases of malpractice. Medical experts are required to testify whether or not the health care provider adhered to the standards of treatment for their specific area. They also have to testify to the harm that was caused by the actions or inactions of the doctor.

The consequences of negligence and negligence can be very serious. For example, a misdiagnosis of a health problem could cause life-threatening complications. Other types of injuries include operating on the wrong body part or leaving instruments inside the patient during surgery.

In order to establish a malpractice claim, the patient must prove four legal elements: a duty that the doctor owed them; a breach of this duty; a subsequent injury; and damages. In certain states, such as New York, the law places a limit on the amount that can be awarded in a malpractice claim.

Causation

The injury element, also known as causation, is one of the most important elements of medical malpractice cases. To establish causation the plaintiff must prove that their injury was caused by a physician's negligence. This can be a challenging job due to a variety of reasons.

For instance, many of the injuries that are the cause of a medical negligence lawsuit arise from long-term or ongoing conditions that were already present before treatment began. Often the statute of limitation for a medical malpractice lawsuit extends over a variety of years, and injuries can develop gradually.

In these instances it is often difficult to prove that a certain medical professional's violation of the standard of care led to the injury. The attorney may have gathered evidence, like medical records and expert testimony which the injured patient may use.

During the discovery process, which is an integral part of the legal process for prepping for trial, your lawyer can ask for the disclosure of expert testimony and other documents from the lawyers of the defendants. The doctor who is defending the case will be required to take a deposition. This is a statement that's given under the oath. Your lawyer can challenge doctor's findings and cross-examine them. The jury will decide then if the plaintiff has proved the essential elements of their case, including obligation, breach, causation and injury.

Negligence

The plaintiff must convince the jury in a case of medical malpractice to show that it is more than likely that the doctor violated the obligations of a doctor and that these violations caused injury. The lawyer representing the plaintiff must demonstrate this by presenting evidence through pretrial discovery, which involves seeking disclosure of documents, which includes medical records from all parties involved in the lawsuit. Depositions, where statements are made under oath and recorded for trial, are also part of this procedure.

A doctor breached his or her professional obligations when he/she did something that a reasonable prudent doctor would not do in the same circumstances. It must be established that the breach was the cause of the injury directly to the patient. This is referred to as causation or proximate causes. For instance when a patient is taken to the hospital for a procedure to treat a hernia and is later told that he or the gall bladder removed instead. This is medical malpractice as the removal of the gall bladder was not beneficial to the patient.

Medical malpractice lawsuits must be brought within a legally-defined period of time, referred to as the statute of limitations, which varies by state. The person who has suffered injury must prove that the substandard care caused injury and then he or she must show how much compensation he or her deserves.

Damages

If medical negligence caused you to sustain an injury, you are entitled to be made whole. Scaffidi & Associates can help you receive full and fair compensation for your losses.

The first step is to file and serve an order and complaint on all defendants named in the lawsuit. The parties then participate in discovery, a procedure in which documents and statements are disclosed under oath. Medical records and the notes of the doctor are typically sought during discovery.

In most states, Powrót you need to prove four things in order to be compensated for the injuries caused by medical malpractice which includes a duty to the healthcare provider and a breach of the duty; a causal link between the breach and lawsuits the patient's injury as well as damages that result from the injury. If your lawyer can demonstrate all of these elements of a medical negligence claim, you will have a convincing case.

In some cases, a court may make punitive damages available, which are intended to penalize the perpetrator and discourage others from engaging in the same conduct. However, this is not the norm in medical malpractice cases as courts require clear evidence of malice to make these extraordinary awards.