Birth Injury Compensation

It can be devastating If your child suffers a birth injury due to the negligence of a doctor. These injuries could require long-term treatment and care. You'll be left with huge financial costs.

Additionally, many birth injury cases have a complex argument over medical errors versus malpractice. Our lawyers can help understand the differences.

Costs of Treatment

Attorneys, insurance companies, and judges look at the severity of the birth injury and the impact it has on the child's development when determining the amount of compensation to be awarded. For instance, if a child requires constant medical attention which will raise the value of the claim.

Medical treatment for birth injuries can be extremely expensive. Compensation for birth injuries could aid families in covering these costs. Lawyers often collaborate with experts in putting together an "Life Care Plan," which calculates the lifetime costs incurred by a child's injury. These costs include hospitalization, surgery, medical treatments and prescriptions, home improvements and equipment, etc.

Your legal team will collect medical documents from the pregnancy and birth injury lawsuits of your child, as well as firsthand accounts from family members. These documents will be used to show that your child was injured due to medical malpractice and to demonstrate the extent of the injury.

Many states have enacted medical indemnity funds in order to help families of children suffering from birth injuries. These funds pay a portion of malpractice insurance premiums or require doctors and hospitals to contribute to the pool of resources. In addition to providing monetary support, these programs can also decrease the need for families to bring a lawsuit. JLARC staff, however, found that these programs did not always meet their objectives and need to be improved.

Life Care Planning

Children suffering from conditions like cerebral palsy and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy are likely to have lifelong medical needs. This includes physical therapy, special equipment and home health care. Often, these costs can be quite significant.

A life-care plan is a document that outlines the future medical education, in-home, and other costs the child with disabilities will be liable for for the rest of his or his or her life. These plans are typically used to help calculate the economic component of damages awarded in a birth injury lawsuit. These plans should be thorough and meticulously drafted to comply with the strict requirements for admissibility.

Life-care planning experts can help to create these documents using feedback and formal opinions from a disabled child's doctors, therapists and caregivers. The plans include a comprehensive account of the injury and its diagnosis. They also explain the root reason for the disability and its long-term consequences.

An attorney for medical malpractice should work with a life-care planner to come up with the best plan for their client's specific situation. The goal of the plan is to ensure that your child receives adequate compensation to cover all of their future medical and other expenses. The money is usually put into a special needs trust managed by an approved administrator. Typically, the amount of funds granted will be adjusted over time to reflect any changes in your child's requirements.

Suffering and Pain

In a birth injury lawsuit, damages are awarded for a plaintiff's past and future pain and suffering. This includes physical and mental discomfort caused by the injury as well as the inability to take part in activities that others are able to perform.

You may also be able to recover lost income when a victim's injury affects their work options or stops them from working at all. In addition, families can be compensated if they are required to provide care for the child who is injured.

The verdicts for medical malpractice cases are typically extremely high, since juries are often sympathetic to patients and hold doctors accountable for their errors. This is why some hospitals and doctors prefer to settle instead of risking the trial process, which is costly and stressful for the parties involved.

Both sides will gather evidence to support their arguments in the course of trial. They will exchange documents during a process known as discovery, which involves deposing a witness to get statements under the oath. In many states, defendants can also request access to the records of the plaintiff.

An attorney with experience in this type of situation is required to file a successful claim for birth injury. A knowledgeable attorney will examine your case to determine if you have a valid lawsuit and will work to find the most effective settlement.

Punitive Damages

Certain medical malpractice lawsuits include punitive damages, which are meant to serve as a warning and prevent future negligence. They may be awarded in cases involving particularly serious negligence or where there was intentional misconduct on the part the medical professional. However, they are extremely rare in birth injury cases.

Once the attorney has identified the appropriate defendants, they need to collect and analyze evidence to back up their claims. They must prove that the injuries caused by medical professionals did not meet standards of care. The legal team is also required to show the financial losses resulting from these injuries, referred to as "damages." The information could be either economic or non-economic in nature.

Economic losses are usually calculated by making estimates of the cost of the child's ongoing treatment, which may include long-term care facilities as well as other services. They could also consider the loss of earnings if the accident caused one or both parents to leave their jobs.

The legal team will prepare a demand package that they will present to malpractice insurance companies. The document will outline the birth injuries, and their impact on the child and the family, and Birth Injury Lawsuit ask for compensation for birth injury lawsuit the losses. The attorneys will negotiate with medical professionals until an agreement is reached. During this process, the lawyers will share information about their cases with the other side through discovery, which involves depositions of witnesses who testify under oath.