Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York
Medical malpractice can cause various expenses, including costly medical bills, lost income and damages not based on economics, such as suffering and pain. A licensed New York attorney can help you understand your rights to claim compensation.
First consider if your injuries resulted from an error in medical care. Then, you can proceed with the process of bringing a malpractice lawsuit.
Medical expenses
The most obvious cost of malpractice is the cost of medical care required to treat the resulting injuries. It's important to recognize that this type of damage is restricted by state law at a specific amount set in the liability of a health provider's insurance policy. Certain states have also created injured patient compensation funds to help offset the costs of litigation and help providers lower their liability insurance rates.
In addition to medical expenses Victims are also entitled to compensation for other expenses related to the negligence. These are known as economic or special damages. These include the cost of medical services (past or in the future) required to treat an injury caused by the negligence and also any income loss resulting from being in a position of being unable to work.
Damages for pain and suffering are also typical in medical
malpractice cases. This type of compensation is subjective and may differ greatly between different claimants. This includes physical pain, emotional distress and other non-physical effects of the mistake. A plaintiff, for instance might be compensated in the event that an error by a doctor that caused her to fail to attend a crucial cancer screening.
Finally, punitive damages are also possible in certain cases. These are intended to punish the doctor for egregious behavior, such as leaving a dirty sponge in the patient's body after surgery.
Pain and suffering
In medical malpractice cases it is a matter of pain and suffering. It is a type non-economic damages. They cover the emotional and physical trauma that a victim suffered as a result of the medical professional's negligence. The symptoms could be minor, like discomfort or anxiety or severe symptoms, such as loss of pleasure in life or depression, embarrassment or anxiety, and sleep issues.
It's difficult to establish the value of suffering and pain, therefore jury instructions typically leave it up to the jurors to rely on their own judgment as well as their background and experience in determining what they believe is fair and reasonable. This is why the amounts given in malpractice cases can vary in a wide range.
Your medical
malpractice attorney can help you demonstrate the extent of your suffering through evidence that is tangible. Photographs, X-rays and X-rays as well as models, home movies, diagrams, and sketches can help a jury determine the extent of your injuries and understand how they have impacted your daily life.
If a doctor's malpractice caused the death of a patient's heirs, they could be able to recover damages through the survival statutes or wrongful death lawsuits. In the case of wrongful death, laws generally allow the spouse and children to claim the same compensation they would have received had the patient survived. In general, however, the total amount of damages that a victim is able to collect is limited by a state's damages caps for pain and suffering. This is why it's important to have a seasoned medical malpractice lawyer on your side to fight for the justice you deserve.
Lost wages
You can recover your lost wages if your absence from work due to medical malpractice. This amount includes your base pay, bonuses, commissions and employment benefits, as well as pay increases, and retirement fund contributions. Your attorney will examine your past pay stubs to calculate your average earnings prior to your injury, and then subtract your lost work to calculate your total lost earnings. Your attorney can assist you to determine the loss you will incur in the future income using a current value calculation. This is a sophisticated financial analysis that examines the impact of your injuries on your ability to work in the future, and it's generally performed by a professional employed by your attorney.
You may also be able to recover non-economic damages like suffering and pain caused by the malpractice. The jury will determine the amount of compensation that is appropriate which varies from case to case. Certain states, however, have a cap on the amount of damages they can claim, and they've been ruled unconstitutional in a number of cases.
Settlements of seven figures tend to be caused by serious permanent injuries or wrongful death caused by severe healthcare negligence. High-value settlements may be granted for, among other things, surgical blunders that result in amputations or brain damage to infants and mothers, as well as anesthesia mistakes that cause comas. In certain instances there may be punitive damages offered to punish bad behavior.
Future medical treatment costs - Damages
In a medical malpractice case there are two types of damages a plaintiff can 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 and loss of enjoyment. In a case of medical negligence the jury will be able to hear expert testimony from experts to assess these types losses.
Past medical expenses are relatively easy to prove by submitting actual bills from the victim's health healthcare providers. The attorney representing the plaintiff will present medical evidence to demonstrate the types of treatments that are likely to be needed in the future, and how much they cost now. The amount of medical treatment needed can be affected by the victim's age at the time of the incident.
The ability to prove damages for future lost earnings is possible if you can show how the injury has affected the patient's earning capacity and ability to work. This can be proven by expert testimony or studying similar cases in the past.
Pain and suffering is a umbrella term that refers to the physical and mental discomfort and distress that patients experience due to medical negligence. This type of damage is typically based on testimony of the victim and witnesses and evidence such as photos, videotapes, and written reports.