Medical
Malpractice LawsuitsAttorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients, and are required to act with skill, diligence and care. However, just like any other professional attorneys make mistakes.
There are many mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the aggrieved party must show that there was breach of duty, causation, breach and damages. Let's take a look at each of these components.
Duty-Free
Medical professionals and doctors take the oath of using their skill and training to treat patients, not causing further harm. Duty of care is the foundation for a patient's right to compensation in the event of injury due to medical malpractice. Your lawyer can help determine if your doctor's actions breached this duty of care, and whether these breaches caused injuries or illness to you.
Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional in question owed you the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. To prove that the relationship existed, you could require evidence like your doctor-patient records or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors with similar experience, education and training.
Your lawyer will also have to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is often referred to as negligence. Your attorney will evaluate the defendant's conduct with what a reasonable person would do in the same circumstance.
Your lawyer must also show that the defendant's negligence caused direct loss or injury. This is referred to as causation. Your attorney will use evidence like your doctor or patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure meet the standards of care was the sole cause of your injury or loss to you.
Breach
A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that reflect professional medical standards. If a physician fails to meet those standards and fails to do so results in injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Expert evidence from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications and skills can help determine the standard of care for a specific situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors are required to provide for specific kinds of patients.
In order to win a malpractice claim it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or 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 essential to prove it. If a physician has to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must place the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor fails to perform this, and the patient loses their the use of their arm, malpractice could be at play.
Causation
Attorney
malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. For example the lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.
It is important to recognize that not all mistakes made by attorneys are mistakes that constitute malpractice. Planning and strategy errors do not usually constitute the definition of malpractice. Attorneys have a wide decision-making discretion to make decisions so long as they're in the right place.
The law also grants attorneys an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients, so long as the decision was not arbitrary or negligence. Inability to find important information or documents like witness statements or medical reports could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include the failure to include certain defendants or claims, like the mistake of not remembering a survival number for wrongful death cases or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.
It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff needs to demonstrate that, if it weren't for the lawyer's careless conduct they would have won their case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal
malpractice law firm lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.
Damages
A plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney's actions have caused actual financial losses to win a legal malpractice lawsuit. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit using evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other evidence. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney could have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate cause.
The act of malpractice can be triggered in a variety of different ways. Some of the most common errors include: not meeting the deadline or statute of limitations; not conducting the necessary conflict checks on an instance; applying the law improperly to a client's situation; or breaking a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts), mishandling of the case, and failing to communicate with a client.
In most medical malpractice cases the plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for the out-of-pocket expenses and losses, such as medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment that aids in recovery, and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages, such as 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 compensates a victim for losses resulting from the negligence of the attorney, whereas the latter is intended to deter any future malpractice committed by the defendant.