Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary responsibilities to their clients, and they must act with skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes, as do other professional.

Not every mistake made by an attorney is malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved person must demonstrate duty, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their training and skills to cure patients and not cause harm to others. The legal right of a patient to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of the duty of care. Your attorney can determine if your doctor's actions breached the duty of medical care and if the breach caused injury or illness.

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

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of caring by not adhering to the accepted standards in their field. This is commonly known as negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the defendant's breach directly caused your loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your medical or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to show that the defendant's inability to adhere to the standard of care was the main reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor has a responsibility of care to his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor does not adhere to these standards and the failure results in injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that possess similar qualifications, training as well as experience and qualifications can help determine the standard 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 certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case the case must be proved that the doctor violated his or their duty of care, and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is crucial to establish. If a doctor has to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a cast and then correctly place it. If the doctor failed to perform this task and the patient suffered a permanent loss of use of the arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For example, if a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, which results in the case being lost for ever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to recognize that not all mistakes made by attorneys constitute malpractice. Strategies and mistakes do not typically constitute malpractice and lawyers have plenty of discretion to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery for a client in the event that the failure was not unreasonable or a case of negligence. Failing to discover important details or documents, such as witness statements or medical reports, is a potential example of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to file a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the continual and long-running failure to communicate with a client.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff has to show that if it wasn't due to the lawyer's negligent behavior, they could have won their case. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice attorneys will be rejected. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.

Damages

In order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses that result from an attorney's actions. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit through evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney along with billing records and other documents. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the harm caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is referred to as proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, for example, a statute of limitations, failing to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence of a case, improperly applying law to a client's circumstance and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. merging funds from a trust account with the attorney's own accounts or handling a case in a wrong manner, and failing to communicate 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 hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages like pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, as well as emotional suffering.

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