Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

The mistakes made by an attorney can be considered negligence. To prove legal negligence the victim must demonstrate obligation, breach of obligation, causation, and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to apply their education and skills to cure patients and not cause further harm. The legal right of a patient to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice is based on the notion of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty to care and whether these violations caused injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer needs to demonstrate that a medical professional has an agreement with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to exercise an acceptable level of skill and care. The proof of this relationship could require evidence like the records of your doctor and Malpractice Litigation patient or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors who have similar qualifications, experience and education.

Your lawyer will also have to establish that the medical professional violated their duty to care by not adhering to the accepted standards of their field. This is usually known 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.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the defendant's breach led directly to your injury or loss. This is called causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence including your doctor's or patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's inability to comply with the standard of care was the main cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care to his patients which reflects professional medical standards. If a physician fails to meet these standards and this causes injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications and certifications will help determine what the standard of care is in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors should do for specific types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit, it must be proven that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the violation was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is known as the causation factor and it is vital that it is established. For instance when a broken arm requires an x-ray, the doctor must properly fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient loses their use of the arm, malpractice could be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice litigation; read this post from 25 Cholteth, claims are built on the basis of evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance when a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, leading to the case being lost forever the person who was injured can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to realize that not all mistakes made by attorneys constitute mistakes that constitute malpractice lawyer. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning aren't usually considered to be a violation of the law attorneys have lots of freedom to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery on behalf of clients in the event that the error was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Failing to discover important details or documents like medical reports or witness statements or medical reports, could be an instance of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include failure to add certain claims or defendants such as omitting to submit a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the consistent and long-running inability to communicate with clients.

It's also important that it has to be proven that, had it not been for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The claim of the plaintiff for malpractice is deemed invalid in the event that it is not proved. This makes bringing legal malpractice case claims difficult. This is why it's crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit. This can be proven in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other documents. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm that was caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate causation.

It can happen in a variety of ways. The most frequent kinds of malpractice lawyers are failing to adhere to a deadline, which includes the statute of limitations, failure to conduct a conflict-check or other due diligence on a case, improperly applying the law to a client's case and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account an attorney's account or handling a case in a wrong manner, and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice.

In most medical malpractice lawyers cases the plaintiff seeks compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, for Malpractice litigation example hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment needed to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, victims may seek non-economic damages, like suffering and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life, and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases, there are claims for punitive or compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for the damages caused by negligence on the part of the attorney and the latter is intended to deter future malpractice on the defendant's part.