Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

The mistakes made by an attorney constitutes negligence. To establish legal malpractice, the victim must prove duty, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each of these elements.

Duty

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to apply their education and skills to cure patients and not cause further harm. Duty of care is the foundation for a patient's right to compensation for injuries caused by medical malpractice. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and if the breach caused injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. This can be proved through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient documents and expert testimony from doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not submitting to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence, and your attorney will compare the defendant's behavior with 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 known as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your medical or patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure comply with the standard of care was the sole cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of treatment to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor fails to meet these standards and that failure causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications or experience can help determine the standard of care in a given situation. State and federal laws, as well as guidelines from the institute, help determine what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim, it must be shown that the doctor violated his or duty of care and that the breach was a direct cause of injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation component and it is crucial that it is established. If a doctor has to perform an x-ray on an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient suffers a permanent loss of use of the arm, malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney committed errors that resulted in financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice, and attorneys have the ability to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

Likewise, the law gives attorneys the right to conduct a discovery process on a client's behalf, as long as it was not negligent or unreasonable. Legal malpractice is committed by failing to discover important documents or evidence, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice law firm are a failure to add certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to include a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the frequent and extended failure to contact the client.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be proved that, had it not been the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses in order to win a legal malpractice suit. In a lawsuit, this has to be proven through evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is referred to as the proximate cause.

The definition of malpractice can be found in a variety of ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include the failure to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence check on the case, not applying the law to the client's situation, breaching a fiduciary duty (i.e. commingling trust account funds with personal attorney accounts) and mishandling the case, and not communicating with the client.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. These compensate the victim for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, including hospital and medical bills, the cost of equipment needed to aid in healing, as well as lost wages. Additionally, victims may claim non-economic damages, such as suffering and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

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