Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients and they must act with skill, diligence and care. However, like all professionals, attorneys make mistakes.
Some errors made by attorneys are malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved party has to prove obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these elements.
Duty
Doctors and other medical professionals swear to use their education and experience to treat patients and not cause harm to others. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice rests on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney can help you determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care, and if these breaches caused injuries or illness to you.
Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional you hired owed a fiduciary duty to act with reasonable competence and care. This can be demonstrated through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient records and expert testimony of doctors with similar education, experience and training.
Your lawyer will also have to show that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards of their field. This is often referred to as negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate the defendant's conduct to what a reasonable individual would perform in the same situation.
Your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly led to damage or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your medical or patient reports, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure to meet the standard of care was the main cause of your injury or loss to you.
Breach
A doctor is bound by a duty of care for his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails meet these standards and the failure results in injury, medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar training, skills or certifications will help determine what the standard of treatment should be in a particular case. Federal and state laws and institute policies also define what doctors must do for specific types of patients.
To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or their duty of care, and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element, and it is imperative to prove it. If a doctor has to perform an x-ray on an injured arm, they must put the arm in a cast and then correctly set it. If the doctor fails to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss in use of the arm, malpractice may be at play.
Causation
Lawyer malpractice claims are based on evidence that the attorney made mistakes that caused financial losses to the client. For example, if a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, which results in the case being lost for ever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.
It's important to recognize that not all mistakes made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice and lawyers have plenty of discretion to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.
The law also gives attorneys a wide range of options to refuse to perform discovery on the behalf of clients, so in the event that it is not negligent or unreasonable. Legal malpractice can be committed by failing to discover important documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include inability to include certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to submit a survival count in a wrongful-death case or the consistent and long-running inability to contact clients.
It's also important to note that it must be proved that if it weren't the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be rejected. This makes the process of bringing legal
malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.
Damages
A plaintiff must demonstrate that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses to win a legal malpractice lawsuit. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proven through evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and client. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is referred to as proximate causation.
It can happen in many different ways. Some of the most common malpractices include: failing an expiration date or statute of limitations; failing to conduct a conflict check on cases; applying law incorrectly to a client's particular situation; and breaking the fiduciary obligation (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account an attorney's account or handling a case improperly and not communicating with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.
Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. The compensations pay for expenses out of pocket and losses such as medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. Additionally, victims may be able to claim non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional suffering.
Legal
malpractice law firm cases typically include claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The first compensates the victim for the losses due to the negligence of the attorney and the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice on the defendant's part.