Medical
malpractice law firms Lawsuits
Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients and they are expected act with a degree of diligence, skill and care. However, like all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.
Not all errors made by attorneys are a result of malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show duty, breach of duty, causation and damage. Let's take a look at each of these components.
Duty
Medical professionals and doctors swear to apply their education and experience to help patients and not cause harm to others. The duty of care is the basis for the right of a patient to be compensated if they are injured by medical negligence. Your attorney can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injury or illness to you.
Your lawyer must establish that the medical professional you hired owed a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable competence and care. Proving that this relationship existed could require evidence like the records of your doctor and patient, eyewitness statements and experts from doctors with similar experiences, education and training.
Your lawyer will also need to prove that the medical professional violated their duty to care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence, and your attorney will examine the defendant's actions to what a reasonable person would do in the same circumstance.
In addition, your lawyer must show that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused your loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your attorney will rely on evidence such as your medical documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to show that the defendant's failure to live up to the standards of care in your case was a direct cause of your loss or injury.
Breach
A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that reflect professional standards in medical practice. If a doctor fails to adhere to these standards and the failure results in an injury or medical malpractice, then negligence can occur. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of medical care should be in a particular case. State and federal laws and institute policies also determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.
To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be proven that the doctor violated his or his duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is vital that it be established. If a doctor is required to obtain an xray of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a cast and correctly set it. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss of use of the arm, malpractice could have taken place.
Causation
Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney's errors caused financial losses to the client. Legal
malpractice attorney claims can be brought by the victim for example, if the lawyer fails to file the lawsuit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever.
However, it's important to understand that not all mistakes made by attorneys are mistakes that constitute malpractice. Planning and strategy errors are not typically considered to be the definition of malpractice. Attorneys have a broad decision-making discretion to make decisions, as long as they're rational.
In addition, the law allows attorneys the right to perform discovery on the behalf of clients, so long as it was not negligent or unreasonable. The failure to discover crucial details or documents like witness statements or medical reports can be a case of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to include a survival count in a wrongful-death case, or the repeated and prolonged failure to contact the client.
It is also important to keep in mind the necessity for the plaintiff to demonstrate that, if it weren't for the lawyer's negligent conduct they would have prevailed. The plaintiff's claim for malpractice is deemed invalid if it's not proved. This makes the filing of legal malpractice claims a challenge. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.
Damages
A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions resulted in actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proven through evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. In addition the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate causation.
It can happen in a variety of ways. Some of the most common mistakes are: failing to meet the deadline or statute of limitations; not performing an examination of a conflict on cases; applying law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's circumstances; and breaching the fiduciary obligation (i.e. Commingling funds from a trust account with the attorney's own accounts, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.
Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. The compensations pay for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses such as medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain, loss of enjoyment of their lives, and emotional distress.
In a lot of legal malpractice cases there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The former compensates a victim for the loss resulting from the attorney's negligence, while the latter is designed to deter any future malpractice committed by the defendant.