Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys have a fiduciary duty to their clients, and they are expected act with a high degree of skill, diligence and care. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.
Not every mistake made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal negligence the person who was hurt must prove obligation, breach of obligation, causation, as well as damage. Let’s look at each of these aspects.
Duty
Doctors and other medical professionals swear by their training and expertise to treat patients and not cause harm to others. 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 your doctor’s actions violated the duty of care and if the breach resulted in your injury or illness.
Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony of witnesses, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors who have similar education, experience and training.
Your lawyer will also have to show that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence. Your attorney will compare the defendant’s behavior to what a reasonable individual would take in the same scenario.
Finally, your lawyer must prove that the defendant’s lapse of duty directly caused injury or loss to you. This is referred to as causation, and your attorney will rely on evidence like your medical reports, witness statements and expert testimony to prove that the defendant’s inability to uphold the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your loss or injury.
Breach
A doctor is bound by a duty of care for his patients that conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor does not adhere to these standards and fails to do so results in injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar training, skills or certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of treatment should be in a particular situation. State and federal laws, as well as institute policies, help define what doctors are expected to do for certain types of patients.
To win a malpractice claim, it must be proven that the doctor acted in violation of his or her duty to care and that this violation was the sole cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation element and it is crucial that it is established. If a doctor is required to take an x-ray of a broken arm, they have to put the arm in a cast and then correctly set it. If the doctor failed to complete the procedure and the patient was left with a permanent loss of the use of the arm, then franklin malpractice lawsuit could have occurred.
Causation
Legal rockwall malpractice attorney claims built on the basis of evidence that a lawyer made errors that resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance when a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever, the injured party can file legal malpractice claims.
It is important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. Strategy and planning errors are not always considered to be malpractice. Attorneys have a broad decision-making discretion to make decisions so long as they’re rational.
The law also allows attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the failure 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 instances of malpractice could be a inability to include certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to make a survival claim in a case of wrongful death or the consistent and persistent failure to contact a client.
It’s also important to note that it must be established that, had it not been for the lawyer’s negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff will be rejected if it is not proven. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It’s essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.
Damages
To win a legal malpractice lawsuit the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses incurred by the actions of an attorney. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney as well as billing records and other documentation. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer could have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as the proximate cause.
The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the most common malpractices include: failing a deadline or statute of limitations; not conducting an examination of a conflict on a case; applying the law improperly to a client’s situation; or breaking an obligation of fiduciary (i.e. commingling trust account funds with personal attorney accounts), mishandling of the case, or not communicating with clients.
In the majority of medical Maywood Malpractice Lawyer cases the plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages. These damages compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as losses, such as medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. In addition, the victims can seek non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.
Legal malpractice cases often involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for losses caused by the attorney’s negligence, while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant.