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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

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

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to apply their education and experience to help patients and not cause harm to others. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of duty of care. Your lawyer can help determine whether or not your doctor's actions breached this duty of care, and if these breaches resulted in injury or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer has to prove that a medical professional had an legal relationship with you that have a fiduciary obligation to exercise an acceptable level of competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also need 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 called negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation.

Then, your lawyer has to show that the defendant's breach of duty directly led to injury or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your doctor or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to meet the standard of care was the sole cause of the injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of care for his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor does not adhere to these standards and the result is an injury that is medically negligent, negligence could result. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar training, skills and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of care is in a particular situation. State and federal laws, along with policies of the institute, help define what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit, it must be shown that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation factor and it is essential that it is established. If a doctor needs to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and properly place it. If the doctor was unable to perform this task and the patient suffered an irreparable loss of use of the arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Lawyer malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney committed mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. For instance the lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It's important to know that not all errors made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning errors do not usually constitute the definition of malpractice. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion in making decisions so long as they're in the right place.

The law also allows lawyers an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients in the event that the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Legal malpractice can be committed by not obtaining crucial documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are a failure to add certain defendants or claims such as omitting to include a survival count in a case of wrongful death or the consistent and persistent inability to communicate with the client.

It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff has to prove that if not due to the lawyer's negligent behavior they would have won their case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice attorneys will be rejected. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This can be proven in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other evidence. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. The most frequent mistakes include: not meeting the deadline or statute of limitations; not conducting a conflict check on a case; applying the law improperly to a client's specific circumstances; and violating the fiduciary duty (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account with an 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. These damages compensate the victim for out-of pocket expenses and expenses such as medical and hospitals bills, equipment costs to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, victims can seek non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life, and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The first is meant to compensate the victim for the damages caused by the negligence of the attorney while the latter is designed to prevent future mistakes on the defendant's part.