Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys have a fiduciary duty to their clients and they are expected act with skill, diligence and care. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.
Some mistakes made by an attorney are considered to be malpractice. To prove legal negligence the victim must demonstrate the breach of duty, obligation, causation, as well as damage. Let's look at each of these aspects.
Duty-Free
Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their training and expertise to treat patients and not to cause further harm. Duty of care is the foundation for the right of a patient to be compensated in the event of injury due to medical malpractice. Your lawyer can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and if these breaches resulted in injury or illness to you.
To prove a duty to care,
malpractice lawsuit your lawyer has to show that a medical professional has an official relationship with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to perform their duties with a reasonable level of expertise and care. The proof of this relationship could require evidence like your doctor-patient records, eyewitness statements and expert testimony from doctors who have similar qualifications, experience and education.
Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is typically known as negligence. Your lawyer will assess what the defendant did to what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation.
Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's negligence directly contributed to your injury or loss. This is referred to as causation, and your attorney will rely on evidence such as your medical documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to uphold the standards of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.
Breach
A doctor owes patients duties of care that conform to the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a physician fails to meet these standards, and the resulting failure causes an injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar training, skills and certifications will help determine what the standard of treatment should be in a specific situation. Federal and state laws, along with policies of the institute, help define what doctors are expected to do for certain kinds of patients.
To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit the case must be proved that the doctor violated his or their 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 crucial to prove it. If a physician has to conduct an x-ray examination of a broken arm, they must put the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor fails to do this and the patient loses their the use of their arm, malpractice could have occurred.
Causation
Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.
It is crucial to realize that not all errors made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not generally considered to be
malpractice attorneys have a lot of latitude to make judgment calls as long as they're reasonable.
The law also grants attorneys the right to refuse to conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the decision was not arbitrary or a result of negligence. The failure to discover crucial information or documents, such as medical reports or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to add certain defendants or claims, such as the mistake of not remembering a survival number for the case of wrongful death or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.
It's also important to note that it must be proven that, had it not been the negligence of the lawyer, the plaintiff would have won the case. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice will be rejected if it's not proved. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.
Damages
A plaintiff must prove that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal
malpractice lawsuit. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit by utilizing evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other records. The plaintiff must also show that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is called proximate causation.
The causes of malpractice vary. The most frequent types of malpractice include: failing to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence check on the case, not applying the law to a client's case or
malpractice lawsuit breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. merging funds from a trust account an attorney's own accounts or handling a case improperly and failing to communicate with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.
Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses like hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to aid recovery, and lost wages. Victims can also seek non-economic damages like pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, and emotional suffering.
In many legal malpractice cases there are claims for punitive and compensatory damages. The former is intended to compensate the victim for the damages due to the negligence of the attorney and the latter is intended to prevent future mistakes by the defendant's side.