Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are required to conduct themselves with diligence, care and ability. Attorneys make mistakes just like any other professional.
A mistake made by an attorney constitutes an act of malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense, the aggrieved must show obligation, breach of duty, causation and damage. Let's take a look at each of these aspects.
Duty-Free
Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to use their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice rests on the notion of the duty of care. Your lawyer can assist you determine if the actions of your doctor 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 skill and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence, such as your records of your doctor-patient relationship eyewitness accounts and expert testimony from doctors who have similar knowledge, experience, and education.
Your lawyer will also have to establish that the medical professional breached their duty of caring by failing to adhere to the accepted standards of their area of expertise. This is often called negligence, and your attorney will compare the defendant's behavior to what a reasonable person would take in the same scenario.
Your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly resulted in injury or loss to you. This is referred to as causation, and your attorney will rely on evidence like your medical reports, witness statements and expert testimony to demonstrate that the defendant's inability to live up to the standards of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.
Breach
A doctor owes patients duties of care that reflect professional medical standards. If a physician fails to live up to those standards and fails to do so causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Expert testimony from medical professionals who have similar training, certificates, skills and experience can help determine the standard of care for a specific situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.
To prevail in a
malpractice lawsuit it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or her duty of care and that this breach was a direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component and it is crucial to establish. For instance when a broken arm requires an xray, the doctor must place the arm and put it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to perform this, and the patient loses their usage of the arm, malpractice could be at play.
Causation
Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.
It is important to understand that not all mistakes made by lawyers are considered to be malpractice. Strategies and planning errors are not typically considered to be misconduct. Attorneys have a broad decision-making discretion to make decisions so long as they're reasonable.
The law also allows lawyers an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of their clients provided that the decision was not arbitrary or a case of negligence. Legal malpractice can be committed through the failure to uncover important documents or evidence, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include the failure to include certain defendants or claims, such as failing to include a survival count for wrongful death cases or the recurrent failure to communicate with clients.
It's also important to keep in mind that it must be established that, if not for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff is rejected in the event that it is not proved. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.
Damages
A plaintiff must prove that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit by utilizing evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney as well as billing records and other records. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer would have avoided the harm caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate causation.
It can happen in many different ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, such as a statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence on the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust funds with an attorney's personal accounts) or mishandling the case, or failing to communicate with a client.
Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. These damages compensate the victim for the cost of out-of-pocket expenses and losses, such as hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. In addition, the victims can be able to claim non-economic damages like pain and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.
Legal
malpractice lawyer cases usually involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the loss resulting from the negligence of the attorney, whereas the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.