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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are expected to behave with care, diligence and skill. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.

Every mistake made by an attorney is malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show obligation, breach of duty, causation and damages. Let's examine each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their education and expertise to treat patients and not to cause further harm. Duty of care is the basis for the right of a patient to be compensated in the event of injury due to medical malpractice. Your lawyer can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injury or illness to you.

Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional owed you the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable competence and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care in not adhering to the accepted standards of their field. This is usually described as negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate what the defendant did to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Then, your lawyer has to show that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused injury or loss to you. This is known as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your doctor-patient documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to show that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

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 meet those standards and the failure causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have similar training, expertise and certifications will help determine what the appropriate standard of treatment should be in a particular circumstance. Federal and state laws, along with institute policies, define what doctors are expected to provide for specific types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the case must be proved that the doctor breached his or their duty of care, and that this breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is crucial to establish. For instance, if a broken arm requires an xray the doctor has to properly fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor is unable to perform this, and the patient suffers a permanent loss in usage of the arm, malpractice could have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that the attorney's mistakes resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance the lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever the person who was injured could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes by attorneys are malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not generally considered to be malpractice attorneys have the ability to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery for a client, so long as the failure was not unreasonable or negligent. Failing to discover important information or documents like medical reports or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain defendants or claims such as omitting to file a survival count in a case of wrongful death or the consistent and extended inability to communicate with the client.

It's also important that it must be proven that, if not the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice will be rejected if it is not proven. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice law firm suit. This can be proven in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney as well as billing records and other documentation. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

It can happen in many different ways. The most frequent mistakes include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; not conducting the necessary conflict checks on cases; applying law improperly to a client's situation; or breaking the fiduciary duty (i.e. Commingling funds from a trust account with an attorney's own accounts as well as failing to communicate with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensations compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and expenses like hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, victims can seek non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional suffering.

Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for losses caused by the negligence of the attorney, whereas the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.