Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary responsibilities to their clients and are required to act with diligence, skill and care. But, as with all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.

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

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take an oath to use their skill and training to treat patients, not cause additional harm. A patient's legal right to be compensated for injuries sustained from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of duty of care. Your lawyer can assist you determine if your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether these breaches resulted in injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records, and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards in their field. This is often referred to by the term negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate what the defendant did with what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the breach by the defendant caused direct loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence, such as your doctor/patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to meet the standards of care was the direct cause of the injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of care for his patients that reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor does not meet those standards and this results in injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Typically expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications or certifications will help determine what the appropriate standard of care is in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies also help determine what doctors should do for certain types of patients.

To win a malpractice case it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is essential to establish. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an x-ray the doctor must properly fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the physician failed to do so and the patient suffered an irreparable loss of function of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on evidence that the attorney's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For example, if a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, leading to the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages can bring legal malpractice actions.

It is important to recognize that not all mistakes made by lawyers are a sign of malpractice. Errors involving strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice, and attorneys have lots of freedom to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.

Additionally, the law grants attorneys a lot of discretion to conduct discovery on behalf of a client's behalf, as provided that the decision was not unreasonable or negligent. The failure to discover crucial facts or documents, such as medical or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims, such as forgetting to include a survival count in a case of wrongful death or the frequent and long-running failure to contact the client.

It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff needs to prove that, if not for the lawyer's careless conduct they would have prevailed. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice lawyer will be denied. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses incurred by the actions of the attorney. This should be proved in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney or billing records, and other documentation. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the damage caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is called proximate causation.

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, failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence of the case, not applying law to a client's situation or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. Commingling funds from a trust account with an attorney's account or handling a case in a wrong manner, and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for expenses out of pocket and losses, like medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can claim non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

Legal malpractice cases usually include 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 intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.