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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with care, diligence and ability. Attorneys make mistakes, just like every other professional.

The mistakes made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved person must demonstrate that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath that they will use their skills and experience to cure patients, not causing further harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of duty of care. Your lawyer can help determine if your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and if these breaches resulted in injury or illness to you.

Your lawyer must prove that the medical professional you hired owed a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence, such as your doctor-patient records or eyewitness testimony, as well as experts from doctors with similar experiences, education and training.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care by failing to follow the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is typically described as negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Finally, your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly caused injury or loss to you. This is called causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant’s failure to meet the standards of care was the primary cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that conform to the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a doctor fails to live up to those standards and the failure results in injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that have the same training, certifications, skills and experience can help determine the appropriate level of care in a given situation. Federal and state laws, along with policies of the institute, help determine what doctors are required to provide for specific types of patients.

To win a malpractice case it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element and it is crucial that it be established. For instance when a broken arm requires an xray, the doctor has to properly place the arm and put it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor was unable to perform this task and the patient was left with an irreparable loss of function of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's errors caused financial losses to the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever the person who was injured can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys are given plenty of discretion to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

In addition, the law allows attorneys considerable leeway to fail to conduct discovery on behalf of a client, so provided that the decision was not unreasonable or negligent. Failing to discover important facts or documents, such as medical reports or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful death case or the frequent and prolonged inability to communicate with clients.

It's also important to note that it must be proved that, had it not been the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice suit, the plaintiff must show actual financial losses resulting from the actions of an attorney. In a lawsuit, this must be proven with evidence like expert testimony or correspondence between the client and attorney. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate causation.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitation, failure to perform a conflict check or other due diligence of a case, improperly applying law to a client's situation or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. Commingling funds from a trust account with an attorney's account, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. The compensations pay for out-of pocket expenses and expenses like hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to help recover and lost wages. In addition, victims can be able to claim non-economic damages such as suffering and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the loss resulting from the negligence of an attorney, while the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.