Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are in a fiduciary position with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with diligence, care and competence. However, just like any other professional, attorneys make mistakes.

The mistakes made by an attorney constitutes malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved party must show obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's review each of these aspects.

Duty

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to apply their education and skills to cure patients and not cause harm to others. Duty of care is the foundation for patients' right to compensation when they suffer injuries due to medical negligence. Your lawyer can help determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated the duty of care, and if these breaches resulted in injury or illness to you.

Your lawyer must prove that the medical professional in question owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. This can be demonstrated by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors with similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also need to establish that the medical professional violated their duty of care by failing to follow the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the defendant's conduct with what a reasonable person would take in the same scenario.

Your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly caused your loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your medical documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to demonstrate that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standards of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of care to his patients which conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor does not meet these standards, and the resulting failure causes an injury that is medically negligent, negligence may occur. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar training, skills or certifications will assist in determining what the minimum standard of medical care should be in a specific situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors should perform for specific types of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim the case must be proved that the doctor violated his or his duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element and it is vital to establish. For instance, if a broken arm requires an x-ray, the doctor should properly set the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the physician failed to do this and the patient was left with an irreparable loss of use of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney made mistakes that led to financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the injured party if, for example, the lawyer does not file the lawsuit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations and results in the case being thrown out forever.

It is important to realize that not all errors made by lawyers constitute malpractice. Strategies and planning errors are not typically considered to be negligence. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion in making decisions as long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery on behalf of a client provided that the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligent. Failure to uncover important documents or facts, such as medical or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice. Other instances of Fond du lac malpractice attorney include the inability to add certain defendants or claims, like forgetting a survival count for an unjustly-dead case, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important that it must be proven that but the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. The claim of the plaintiff for malpractice is deemed invalid in the event that it is not proved. This requirement makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. For this reason, it's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

In order to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses resulting from the actions of the attorney. In a lawsuit, this needs to be demonstrated using evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. Some of the most common errors include: not meeting a deadline or statute of limitations; failing to perform the necessary conflict checks on an instance; applying the law improperly to a client's circumstances; and breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with an attorney's personal accounts), mishandling of the case, and not communicating with clients.

Medical middletown malpractice law firm lawsuits 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 that aids in recovering, and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages such as discomfort and pain or loss of enjoyment in their lives, and emotional distress.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases, there are claims for punitive and compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for the damages due to the negligence of the attorney while the latter is meant to discourage any future malpractice on the defendant's part.