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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are required to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility to their clients and they must act with skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.

Every mistake made by an attorney constitutes malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show duty, breach, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to use their education and expertise to treat patients and not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for malpractice injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty of care and if these breaches caused you injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable competence and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence, such as the records of your doctor and patient or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors who have similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their field. This is often referred to by the term negligence. Your lawyer will assess what the defendant did with what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the breach of the defendant's duty directly caused your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence such as 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 loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of care to his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails meet these standards and that 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 quality of care in a given situation. State and federal laws and institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must provide for specific kinds of patients.

To win a malpractice attorney case the case must be proved that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is essential to establish. For instance in the event that a damaged arm requires an xray, the doctor has to properly place the arm and put it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor did not do so and the patient suffered an irreparable loss of function of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For instance, if a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, which results in the case being lost for ever the person who was injured can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to realize that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice, and attorneys have plenty of discretion to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of clients provided that the error was not unreasonable or negligent. Failure to uncover important information or documents, such as witness statements or medical reports, is a potential example of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as omitting to submit a survival count in a wrongful death case or the continual and prolonged failure to contact clients.

It is also important to remember that it must be proved that, if not the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses incurred by an attorney's actions. This can be proven in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney as well as billing records and other documents. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitations, failure to conduct a conflict check or any other due diligence on a case, improperly applying the law to a client's case or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account with the attorney's own accounts or handling a case improperly and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice attorney lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensations are intended to compensate the victim for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and expenses like hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to help recover and lost wages. In addition, victims can claim non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering or loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

Legal malpractice cases often 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 intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.