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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

A mistake made by an attorney constitutes legal malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show obligation, breach of duty, causation and damages. Let's take a look at each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to apply their skill and training to treat patients and not causing further harm. A patient's legal right to receive compensation for injuries resulting due to medical malpractice is based on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions breached the duty of medical care and if the breach caused injury or illness.

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

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not living up to the standards of practice that are accepted in their field. This is usually referred to by the term negligence. Your lawyer will assess the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach of the defendant's duty led directly to your injury or loss. This is known as causation, and your attorney will use evidence such as your medical records, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standards of care in your case was the direct cause of your loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor has a duty to patients of care that conform to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails to meet these standards and the failure causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Typically expert testimony from medical professionals who have similar training, expertise, certifications and experience will aid in determining what the best standard of treatment should be in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies also determine what doctors are required to provide for specific kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawyers case the case must be proved that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element and it is vital to prove it. If a physician has to take an x-ray of a broken arm, they must place the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor was unable to do so and the patient suffered permanent loss of use of the arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that shows the attorney's mistakes resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance the lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It's important to recognize that not all mistakes by attorneys are malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not usually considered to be malpractice attorneys have plenty of discretion to make judgement calls so long as they're reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of clients in the event that the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Legal malpractice can be triggered through the failure to uncover important documents or information, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to include certain defendants or claims, for instance not noticing a survival count in an unjustly-dead case or the constant failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important to note that it must be proved that, if not the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice lawyer will be denied. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. Therefore, it's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to win a legal malpractice lawsuit. In a lawsuit, this must be proven through evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the attorney and the client. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is known as the proximate cause.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. Some of the more common types of malpractice include: failing to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitations, failing to conduct a conflict-check or other due diligence of the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust account funds with an attorney's personal accounts) or mishandling the case, and failing to communicate with a client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses and losses, like medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovery, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can be able to claim non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases, there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The former is intended to compensate the victim for losses due to the negligence of the attorney and lawsuits the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant's side.