Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

A mistake made by an attorney constitutes malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show the breach of duty, duty, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to use their skill and training to treat patients, and not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty to care and Malpractice if the breach caused you injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer has to demonstrate that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that had a fiduciary obligation to perform their duties with an acceptable level of competence and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence such as your doctor-patient records, eyewitness statements and expert testimony from doctors with similar experiences, education and training.

Your lawyer will also have to show that the medical professional breached their duty to care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your attorney will compare the defendant's behavior with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

In addition, your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly led to damage or loss to you. This is called causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's inability to meet the standard of care was the main cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that are consistent with professional standards in medical practice. If a doctor fails to adhere to these standards and the failure results in injury, negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who possess similar qualifications, training or experience can help determine the quality of care in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and 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 proven that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the breach was a direct cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation factor and it is imperative that it be established. If a physician has to obtain an xray of a broken arm, they have to put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the physician failed to do this and the patient was left with an irreparable loss of function of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For example the lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, resulting in the case being lost for ever and the victim can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to realize that not all errors made by attorneys are malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice and lawyers have a lot of latitude to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients as long as the error was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Inability to find important facts or documents like witness statements or medical reports, is a potential example of legal malpractice. Other examples of stroudsburg malpractice lawsuit include a failure to add certain defendants or claims such as omitting to submit a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the continual and extended failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember that it has to be proven that but for malpractice the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice case, plaintiffs must show financial losses caused by an attorney's actions. This should be proved in a lawsuit using evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney along with billing records and other documents. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the most common types of lewisville malpractice attorney include: failing to adhere to a deadline, which includes a statute of limitations, failing to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence check on the case, not applying law to a client's situation and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account with the attorney's personal accounts, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. The compensations pay for out-of-pocket expenses as well as losses, such as medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid recovery, and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages, such as pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional stress.

Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory or punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the losses caused by the attorney's negligence, while the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.