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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are expected to behave with diligence, care and expertise. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Every mistake made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show the breach of duty, duty, causation and damages. Let's take a look at each of these components.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath to apply their skills and experience to treat patients, and not cause additional harm. The legal right of a patient to receive compensation for injuries resulting from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty to care and if those breaches caused injury or illness.

To establish a duty of care, your lawyer must to prove that a medical professional had an official relationship with you and have a fiduciary obligation to perform their duties with an acceptable level of skill and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence, such as your records of your doctor-patient relationship or eyewitness testimony, as well as experts from doctors with similar qualifications, experience and education.

Your lawyer must also show that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence, and your attorney will evaluate the defendant's conduct to what a reasonable person would take in the same scenario.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the breach by the defendant led directly to your injury or loss. This is known as causation, and your attorney will use evidence such as your doctor-patient documents, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to uphold the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor has a duty to patients of care that are consistent with 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 similar training, certificates, skills and experience can help determine the appropriate level of care in a particular situation. Federal and state laws, along with institute policies, help define what doctors are expected to do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case, it must be shown that the doctor violated his or duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation component and it is crucial to establish. For instance an injured arm requires an xray, the doctor has to properly fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor failed to complete the procedure and the patient suffered a permanent loss of the use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance, if a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages can bring legal malpractice actions.

However, it's crucial to be aware that not all errors made by lawyers are a sign of malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys have the ability in making judgment calls so long as they're reasonable.

The law also allows lawyers considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of a client, so long as the failure was not unreasonable or negligence. Failure to uncover important details or documents like medical reports or statements of witnesses could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain claims or defendants, such as forgetting to make a survival claim in a case of wrongful death, or the repeated and persistent failure to contact clients.

It is also important to keep in mind the fact that the plaintiff has to demonstrate that, if it weren't for the lawyer's negligent conduct, they would have prevailed. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This 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 prove actual financial losses caused by the actions of an attorney. In a lawsuit, this must be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the client and attorney. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as the proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the more common types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitation, failure to perform a conflict check or any other due diligence on the case, not applying law to a client's situation and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account the attorney's personal accounts, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for the 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 discomfort and pain or loss of enjoyment in their lives, and emotional anxiety.

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