Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are in a fiduciary position with their clients and are expected to behave with care, diligence and expertise. However, like all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

Some mistakes made by an attorney are malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense the victim must demonstrate duty, breach of duty, causation and damage. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take the oath of using their knowledge and expertise to cure patients, not cause additional harm. Duty of care is the basis for patients' right to compensation if they are injured by medical negligence. Your attorney can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated the duty of care, and whether the breach caused injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer must establish that the medical professional in question owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. The proof of this relationship may require evidence such as your doctor-patient records or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors with similar experience, education and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is often referred to by the term negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach of the defendant's duty directly contributed to your loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your doctor-patient documents, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to meet the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor has a duty to patients of care that conform to the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a doctor fails to meet these standards, and the result is an injury, then medical greeley malpractice lawsuit or negligence could occur. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications, skills and experience can help determine the standard of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also determine what doctors are required to perform for specific types of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim, it must be proven that the doctor acted in violation of his or her duty of take care of patients and that the breach was a direct reason for an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is vital that it is established. If a doctor has to conduct an x-ray examination of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a cast and properly set it. If the doctor was unable to perform this task and the patient was left with an irreparable loss of use of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney's errors caused financial losses to the client. Legal malpractice claims may be brought by the injured party when, for instance, the lawyer is unable to file a lawsuit within the statutes of limitations and the case being lost forever.

It's important to know that not all errors made by attorneys are malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice and lawyers have plenty of discretion to make judgment calls as long as they are reasonable.

Likewise, the law gives attorneys the right to conduct discovery on behalf of a client, so long as it was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice is committed by not obtaining crucial documents or evidence, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of madisonville malpractice lawyer include the failure to add certain defendants or claims, like not noticing a survival count in a wrongful-death case, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to keep in mind the fact that the plaintiff needs to prove that if not for the lawyer's careless conduct, they would have won their case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. This is why it's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the attorney's actions have caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit. In a lawsuit, this must be proved with evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and the client. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate cause.

It can happen in a variety of ways. Some of the more common kinds of malpractice are: failing to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence of the case, not applying the law to a client's case or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account 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 compensatory damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for the expenses out of pocket and losses, for example medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment that aids in recovery, and loss of wages. Victims are also able to claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional anxiety.

Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the losses caused by the negligence of an attorney, while the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.