Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York
Medical malpractice can lead to a variety of damages, including high-cost medical bills, lost income and non-economic damages like suffering and pain. A qualified New York attorney can help you determine your rights to claim compensation.
The first step is to determine if you sustained injuries because of a medical error. You can then make a claim for malpractice.
Medical expenses
The cost of medical care to treat injuries is the most obvious. It's important to recognize that this type of damage is capped by law of the state at a limit set by the liability policy of a healthcare provider's insurance policy. Some states also create injured patients compensation funds to reduce the cost of litigation, and also to help lower the liability costs for health care providers.
In addition to medical expenses, victims are entitled to compensation for other expenses that are a result of negligence. These are referred to as special or economic damages. They cover the costs of any medical procedures (past and future) that are necessary to treat the injuries resulting from the malpractice, as well being any lost earnings due to being unable to work because of the injury.
The damages for pain and suffering are also common in medical
malpractice attorney cases. This type of compensation is a subjective one and can vary greatly between different plaintiffs. It covers any physical pain, emotional distress and other physical or psychological effects due to the error. A plaintiff, for instance could be compensated if an error by a doctor which caused her to not attend an important cancer screening.
In some cases, punitive damages may also be awarded. They are intended to penalize a doctor for particularly egregious behaviour, such as leaving an unclean sponge in the patient's body following surgery.
Pain and suffering
In medical malpractice cases there is pain and suffering as one of the types of non-economic damages. They cover the emotional and physical trauma suffered by a victim due to the negligence of the doctor. The symptoms can be mild such as anxiety or discomfort, or major ones, like loss of pleasure in life or depression, embarrassment or anxiety, and sleep disorders.
It's hard to determine the value of suffering and pain, so jury instructions usually leave it up to the jurors to make use of their own judgment, background, and experience in determining what they believe is fair and reasonable. The amounts awarded in malpractice cases vary widely.
Your medical
malpractice attorney can help you prove the severity of your pain using evidence that is demonstrably backed by. Photographs and X-rays as well as home models, videos and diagrams can help a juror understand the severity of your injuries.
If a medical professional's negligence resulted in the death of a patient, the heirs can seek damages through survival statutes or wrongful death lawsuits. In the case of wrongful death, laws generally allow the spouse and children to recover the same compensation that they would have received if the patient had lived. In general, however, the amount an individual victim receives is restricted by a state's damage caps for pain and suffering. This is why it's so important to have a seasoned medical malpractice lawyer on your side to fight for the compensation you deserve.
Lost wages
If you are absent from work due to medical error, you can recover lost wages. This amount includes your base salary as well as bonuses, commissions, and other benefits of employment. Also, it includes any pay increases or pay increases. Your lawyer will review your past pay stubs to calculate your income before the injury. Then, subtract your missed work from that amount to arrive at total lost wages. Your lawyer can help you determine the loss you will incur in the future income using a current value calculation. This is an analysis of financials that analyzes the impact of your injuries in the future on your ability to earn a living. It is usually done by a professional hired by your attorney.
You can also seek economic damages, such as the pain and suffering due to the negligence. The jury will determine the appropriate compensation amount which may differ from case to case. Certain states limit these damages. However they have been ruled unconstitutional by several courts.
Settlements of seven figures are usually associated with serious permanent injuries or death caused by extreme medical negligence. For instance, surgical errors leading to amputations, complications during obstetrics that cause the brain of an infant and death, and anesthesia mistakes leading to comas may all warrant high-value settlements. In certain circumstances the punitive damages might be offered to punish bad behavior.
Future medical treatment costs - Damages
In a medical malpractice lawsuit there are two types of damages a plaintiff could pursue: non-economic and economic damages. The first is based on measurable losses such as past or future medical expenses. The latter is more difficult to quantify, and includes suffering and pain as well as loss of enjoyment of living. In a lawsuit involving medical malpractice the jury will have to hear expert testimony to evaluate these types of losses.
It is fairly simple to prove past medical expenses by submitting actual bills that were sent to the person who was injured by their health healthcare providers. The plaintiff's attorney will provide medical evidence to prove the kind of treatment that is likely to be required in the future, and what they cost today. The amount of future medical treatments required could be affected by the age of the victim at the time of the incident.
Damages to future wages can be proven through proving the impact of the injury on the patient's ability to work and earn in the future. This could be substantiated by expert testimony or reviewing similar cases from the past.
Pain and suffering is a umbrella word that describes the physical and mental discomfort and suffering which patients suffer because of medical malpractice. This kind of damage is typically based on the testimony of the victim and other witnesses and other evidence such as videotapes, photographs and written reports.