Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary responsibilities to their clients, and they must act with skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes, as do other professional.

Some mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To demonstrate legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's take a look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear the oath of using their skills and experience to cure patients, not to cause further harm. The duty of care is the basis for patients' right to compensation if they are injured by medical negligence. Your lawyer can help determine if the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and if these breaches caused injury or illness to you.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer will need to prove that a medical professional had an agreement with you that have a fiduciary obligation to exercise reasonable expertise and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient reports 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 adhering to the accepted standards of care in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will examine the defendant's actions to what a reasonable individual would do in the same circumstance.

Finally, your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly led to injury or loss to you. This is referred to as causation, and your lawyer will make use of evidence such as your medical reports, witness statements and expert testimony to demonstrate that the defendant's failure to meet the standards of care in your case was the direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of treatment to his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a physician fails to meet those standards, and the failure results in an injury and/or medical malpractice, then negligence may occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications or certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of treatment should be in a particular case. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice claim it must be established that the doctor violated his or her duty to care and that the violation was the primary cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element and it is vital to prove it. If a doctor has to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss in usage of the arm, columbia malpractice attorney may have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes resulted in financial losses for the client. For example when a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.

However, it's important to understand that not all errors made by lawyers are a sign of mistakes that constitute malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not usually considered to be malpractice and lawyers have plenty of discretion in making judgment calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also allows lawyers ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery on behalf of a client as long as the failure was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be triggered when a lawyer fails to find important documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include inability to include certain claims or defendants such as failing to submit a survival count in a case of wrongful death or the consistent and persistent inability to contact a client.

It's also important that it must be established that if it weren't for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This is why it's difficult to bring a legal malpractice claim. It is crucial to find an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses to win a legal malpractice lawsuit. This must be shown in a lawsuit using evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney along with billing records and other documents. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm that was caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the most common malpractices include: failing a deadline or statute of limitations; failing to conduct an investigation into a conflict in an instance; applying the law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's situation; or breaking an obligation of fiduciary (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts) or mishandling an instance, and not communicating with the client.

In the majority of medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff will seek compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses such as medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to aid recovery, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can claim non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional suffering.

Legal malpractice cases usually include claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former is intended to compensate the victim for the losses caused by negligence on the part of the attorney while the latter is meant to discourage any future malpractice on the defendant's part.