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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with care, diligence and competence. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

The mistakes made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove the breach of duty, duty, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear to apply their education and experience to help patients and not cause further harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of the duty of care. Your attorney will determine if the actions of your doctor breached the duty of care and if these breaches resulted in your injury or illness.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable competence and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient documents and expert testimony from doctors who have similar educational, experience and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not living up to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is usually described as negligence. Your attorney will 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 negligence caused direct loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your attorney will use evidence such as your medical documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to show 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 of treatment to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a physician fails to meet those standards and this causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert testimony from medical professionals who possess similar qualifications, training or experience can help determine the quality of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must provide for specific kinds of patients.

To win a malpractice case, it must be shown that the doctor breached his or their duty of care, and that the breach was the direct cause of injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is vital that it is established. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray the doctor has to properly set the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the physician failed to do this and the patient suffered a permanent loss of use of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that shows the attorney's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For example the lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys have lots of freedom to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery on behalf of a client as long as the error was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Failure to uncover important facts or documents, such as medical reports or witness statements or medical reports, could be an instance of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain claims or defendants such as omitting to include a survival count in a wrongful death case, or the repeated and prolonged failure to contact clients.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be proven that, if not the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.

Damages

To prevail in a legal malpractice case, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses caused by an attorney's actions. This should be proved in a lawsuit through evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney or billing records, and other documents. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation.

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

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses such as medical and hospitals bills, equipment costs to aid in recovery, and lost wages. Victims are also able to claim non-economic damages such as pain and discomfort or loss of enjoyment in their lives, as well as emotional distress.

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