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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are expected to act with diligence, care and skill. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

A mistake made by an attorney constitutes legal malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove duty, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each of these elements.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors take an oath that they will use their skill and training to treat patients and not cause additional harm. Duty of care is the basis for the right of patients to receive compensation for injuries caused by medical malpractice. Your attorney will determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty to care and if those breaches caused you injury or illness.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer will need to establish that a medical professional had an agreement with you, in which they were bound by a fiduciary duty to exercise an acceptable level of competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed could require evidence like your records of your doctor-patient relationship eyewitness accounts and expert testimony from doctors who have similar experiences, 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 field. This is typically referred to by the term negligence. Your attorney will compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly resulted in the loss or injury you suffered. This is called causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant’s failure to meet the standard of care was the direct reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that are consistent with the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor fails to meet those standards and the failure causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that possess similar qualifications, training or experience can help determine the level of care in a given situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies also help define what doctors must do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be proven that the doctor violated his or duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element, and it is imperative that it is established. If a doctor needs to conduct an x-ray examination of an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly set it. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient is left with a permanent loss of the use of their arm, malpractice could have taken place.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney made mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. For example when a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, leading to the case being lost forever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawyer lawsuits.

It's important to know that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategy and planning errors are not always considered to be negligence. Attorneys have a broad choice of discretion when it comes to making decisions as long as they're reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of clients, so long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligence. Inability to find important information or documents, such as witness statements or medical reports could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include the failure to include certain defendants or claims, for instance the mistake of not remembering a survival number for wrongful death cases or the inability to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember that it must be proved that, had it not been the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The plaintiff's claim for malpractice is rejected if it's not proved. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

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

The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the most common malpractices include: failing a deadline or statute of limitations; failing to perform the necessary conflict checks on a case; applying the law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's specific circumstances; and violating the fiduciary obligation (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account the attorney's own accounts or handling a case in a wrong manner, and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensatory damages. These compensations are intended to compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can claim non-economic damages, like suffering and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional distress.

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, while the latter is designed to deter any future malpractice committed by the defendant.