Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys have a fiduciary connection with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with diligence, care and ability. However, like all professionals attorneys make mistakes.
The mistakes made by an attorney is legal malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved person must demonstrate obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let’s take a look at each one of these aspects.
Duty-Free
Doctors and medical professionals take the oath of using their skill and training to cure patients, malpractice attorney not causing further harm. The duty of care is the foundation for the right of a patient to be compensated in the event of injury due to medical malpractice. Your attorney can determine if your doctor’s actions breached the duty of medical care and if those breaches resulted in your injury or illness.
To prove a duty of care, your lawyer will need to show that a medical professional had an agreement with you that have a fiduciary obligation to act with an acceptable level of expertise and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.
Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the accepted standards of care in their field. This is usually referred to by the term negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.
Finally, your lawyer must prove that the defendant’s lapse of duty directly caused the loss or injury you suffered. This is called causation. Your attorney will use evidence, such as your doctor/patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant’s failure to adhere to the standard of care was the primary reason for the loss or injury to you.
Breach
A doctor is bound by a duty of care to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor doesn’t meet these standards, and the result is an injury or medical malpractice, then negligence can occur. Expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications and skills can help determine the quality of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also help determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.
To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be established that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the breach was the primary cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is crucial that it is established. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray, the doctor should properly fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to perform this, and the patient is left with a permanent loss of use of the arm, malpractice may be at play.
Causation
Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that resulted in financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, resulting in the case being lost for ever the party who suffered damages may bring legal malpractice claims.
It is crucial to realize that not all mistakes by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategy and planning errors aren’t usually considered to be a sign of negligence. Attorneys have a wide decision-making discretion to make decisions as long as they’re in the right place.
The law also allows attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients in the event that the failure was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice is committed by failing to discover important documents or facts, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to include certain defendants or claims, like the mistake of not remembering a survival number for wrongful death cases or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.
It’s also important that it must be established that, if not the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff will be rejected if it is not proven. This is why it’s difficult to bring a legal malpractice claim. For this reason, it’s crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.
Damages
A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney’s actions caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit through evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney or billing records, and other documents. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as the proximate cause.
The definition of malpractice can be found in a variety of ways. Some of the more common types of Malpractice Attorney include: failing to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence on the case, not applying the law to the client’s situation or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with attorney’s personal accounts), mishandling of an instance, and not communicating with the client.
In most medical malpractice cases the plaintiff seeks compensatory damages. They compensate the victim for the expenses out of pocket and losses, for example hospital and medical bills, the cost of equipment needed to aid in healing, as well as lost wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages like pain and discomfort or loss of enjoyment in their lives, as well as emotional suffering.
Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the losses caused by the negligence of the attorney, whereas the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.