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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary duty to their clients and they must behave with skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Every mistake made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an victim must prove the breach of duty, duty, causation and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their education and expertise to treat patients and not to cause harm to others. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and whether these violations caused injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you an obligation of fiduciary to act with reasonable competence and care. This can be proved by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient records and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also have to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of caring by not adhering to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is commonly known as negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also prove that the breach by the defendant caused direct loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your doctor or patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant’s failure to adhere to the standard of care was the sole cause of the injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that reflect professional medical standards. If a doctor does not live up to those standards and the failure causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Typically expert testimony from medical professionals with similar qualifications, training or certifications will help determine what the standard of treatment should be in a particular circumstance. State and federal laws and institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case the case must be proved that the doctor breached his or their duty of care, and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element, and it is vital to establish. For example an injured arm requires an x-ray the doctor has to properly fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the physician failed to perform this task and the patient suffered a permanent loss of function of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that demonstrates that the attorney's mistakes resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to recognize that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Errors involving strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys have a lot of latitude to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

The law also allows attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of clients provided that the failure was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Inability to find important documents or facts like witness statements or medical reports or medical reports, could be an instance of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to submit a survival count in a case of wrongful death or the consistent and extended inability to contact clients.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff has to prove that if not for malpractice the lawyer's negligent conduct, they would have won their case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff must show actual financial losses that result from an attorney's actions. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be demonstrated using evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and client. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is called proximate causation.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include the failure to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitations, a failure to perform a conflict check or other due diligence of a case, improperly applying the law to a client's case or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. Commingling funds from a trust account the attorney's own accounts as well as not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensatory damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for expenses out of pocket and losses, such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment required to aid in healing, as well as lost wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages, such as pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional anxiety.

Legal malpractice cases often include claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the losses caused by the negligence of an attorney, while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant.