Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys are required to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility to their clients and they are expected act with a degree of diligence, skill and care. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.
A mistake made by an attorney can be considered malpractice. To prove legal
malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each one of these aspects.
Duty
Medical professionals and doctors swear an oath to use their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to receive compensation for injuries resulting from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney can determine if the actions of your doctor breached the duty of care and if these breaches resulted in your injury or illness.
Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional owed you the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable skill and care. This can be proved through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records and expert testimony of doctors with similar educational, experience and training.
Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of caring in not adhering to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is usually known as negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.
Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the breach of the defendant's duty directly caused your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your medical or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's failure meet the standard of care was the main cause of injury or loss to you.
Breach
A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that adhere to the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a doctor does not meet those standards and the failure causes injury, then negligence and medical malpractice might occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have similar training, certifications, skills and experience can help determine the quality of care in a given situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also help define what doctors must provide for specific kinds of patients.
To win a malpractice case the case must be proved that the doctor breached his or his duty of care and that the breach was a direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation element and it is vital to establish. For example an injured arm requires an xray the doctor has to properly fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor failed to do this and the patient was left with permanent loss of use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.
Causation
Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors caused financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever, the injured party can bring legal malpractice actions.
It is important to realize that not all errors made by attorneys are malpractice. Strategies and mistakes do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys are given the ability in making judgment calls so long as they are reasonable.
The law also grants attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of their clients in the event that the error was not unreasonable or negligence. Failing to discover important documents or facts like medical reports or statements of witnesses can be a case of legal
malpractice attorney. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain claims or defendants, such as forgetting to submit a survival count in a wrongful death case or
malpractice the frequent and extended failure to contact a client.
It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff must prove that if not the lawyer's negligence, they would have won their case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes bringing legal malpractice claims difficult. Therefore, it's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.
Damages
In order to prevail in a legal malpractice lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses caused by the actions of an attorney. In a lawsuit, this needs to be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and the client. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate causation.
Malpractice can occur in many different ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include the failure to adhere to a deadline, which includes a statute of limitation, failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence on the case, not applying the law to the client's situation and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account the attorney's personal accounts or handling a case in a wrong manner, and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.
Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of pocket expenses and expenses such as medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to aid recovery, and lost wages. In addition, victims can claim non-economic damages, such as suffering and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional distress.
Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates a victim for the loss resulting from the attorney's negligence, while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant.