Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York
Medical malpractice can lead to various damages, including high-cost medical treatment, lost income and damages not based on economics, such as suffering and pain. A reputable New York attorney can help you understand your rights to be compensated.
First decide if your injuries were caused by an error in medical care. The next step is to start a lawsuit for
malpractice attorneys.
Medical expenses
The expense of medical treatment to treat injuries is the most obvious. This type of damage has a cap set by state law, which is determined in the liability insurance policy of a medical professional. Certain states have also created injured patient compensation funds in order to offset the perceived costs of litigation, and also help providers reduce their liability insurance cost.
In addition to medical expenses, victims are entitled to compensation for the other costs related to the negligence. These are called economic or special damages. These include the cost of medical treatment (past or in the future) required to treat an injury caused by the negligence as well as any income lost due to being incapable of working.
In medical malpractice cases, pain and suffering damages are also common. This category of damages is subjective and could vary dramatically between different plaintiffs. It includes any emotional or physical discomfort and other physical consequences that result from the negligence. A plaintiff, for instance could be compensated if a doctor made a mistake that led her to not attend a crucial cancer screening.
In addition, punitive damages are also possible in some cases. They are intended to penalize a doctor for particularly egregious actions, like leaving an unclean sponge in the patient's body after surgery.
Suffering and pain
Pain and suffering is an example of non-economic loss in medical malpractice cases. The damages cover the physical and psychological trauma sufferers suffered as a result of a doctor's negligence. The symptoms could be minor such as anxiety or discomfort or severe issues, like loss of enjoyment of life as well as depression, embarrassment anxiety, and sleep disorders.
As it's hard to put a value on the amount of pain and suffering the jury instructions generally leave it up to the jurors. They can use their judgment, background and experience to determine what they believe to be fair and reasonable. This is why the amount of money paid in malpractice cases vary widely.
Your medical
malpractice attorney can help you prove the extent of your suffering using demonstrative evidence. Photos, X-rays, models, home movies diagrams and drawings can help a jury determine the severity of your injuries and how they affected your daily routine.
If a negligent doctor caused the death of a victim survivors can seek compensation through the wrongful death lawsuit or through survival statutes. The laws governing wrongful death typically permit the spouse and children to recover the same amount of compensation as they would have received if the patient was alive. The amount that a victim may receive is typically restricted by the state's cap on suffering and pain. This is why it's so important to have a knowledgeable medical
malpractice lawyer on your side to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve.
Lost wages
If you are unable to work due to medical malpractice you may be able to recover your lost wages. This includes your base pay commissions, bonuses, employment benefits, pay increases, and retirement fund contributions. Your attorney will review past pay stubs and determine your average earnings prior to the accident. Then, subtract the absence from that number to determine 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 an analysis of finances that looks at the effects of your injuries into the future on your ability to earn an income. It's usually performed by a specialist commissioned by your attorney.
In addition to compensating for your economic losses, it is also possible to seek non-economic damages to compensate for pain and suffering caused by the accident. The jury will decide the appropriate amount of compensation which varies from case to case. Certain states set a maximum amount for these damages. However, they have been declared unconstitutional by many courts.
Settlements of seven figures are generally caused by serious permanent injuries or death caused by severe healthcare neglect. For instance, surgical errors which result in amputations or complications during obstetrics that cause the brain of an infant and death, as well as anesthesia errors that cause comas could all be the reason for high-value settlements. Punitive damages, specifically designed to punish bad conduct could also be a possibility in certain situations.
Damages that could be incurred for future medical care
In a medical malpractice case there are two types of damages that a plaintiff may pursue: non-economic and economic damages. The first is based on measurable losses such as the future or past medical expenses. The latter are more difficult to quantify and encompass the pain and suffering as well as the loss of enjoyment of life. In a medical malpractice case the jury will have to hear expert testimony to determine these types of losses.
It is relatively easy to establish past medical expenses by submitting actual bills that were given to the injured person by their health care providers. For future expenses, the attorney for the plaintiff will submit medical evidence that shows the type of treatment that is likely to be required in the future and how much the treatments cost currently. The amount of future medical treatment required can be influenced by the age of the victim at the time of the incident.
The damages for lost wages in the future can be proven through proving the impact of the injury on a patient's ability to work and earning capacity in the future. This may be supported by expert testimony or by looking at similar cases from the past.
Pain and suffering is a wider category of damages that includes the physical and emotional discomfort and pain that a patient suffers from medical malpractice. This kind of claim is typically based on testimony from the victim and other witnesses and other evidence such as videos, photographs and written reports.