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Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are expected to conduct themselves with care, diligence and competence. Attorneys make mistakes just like any other professional.

Some errors made by attorneys are legal malpractice. To prove legal negligence the aggrieved party must prove duty, breach of obligation, causation, and damages. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear the oath of using their expertise and knowledge to cure patients, not causing further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice rests on the notion of the duty of care. Your attorney can help you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and if the breach caused injury or illness to you.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer must to show that a medical professional has an official relationship with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to exercise an acceptable level of expertise and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence such as your records of your doctor-patient relationship, eyewitness statements and Malpractice Lawsuit expert testimony from doctors who have similar experiences, education and training.

Your lawyer will also need to prove that the medical professional breached their duty to care by failing to adhere to the accepted standards in their field. This is commonly described as negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the breach of the defendant's duty caused direct injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will use evidence like your medical or patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony, to demonstrate that the defendant's failure adhere to the standard of care was the direct cause of your injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that reflect the standards of medical professional practice. If a doctor fails to meet those standards, and the result is an injury that is medically negligent, negligence may occur. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who have similar training, certificates and skills can help determine the standard of care in a particular situation. State and federal laws, along with institute policies, determine what doctors are required to do for certain kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be proven that the doctor violated his or their duty of care, and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element and it is crucial that it be established. For instance, if a broken arm requires an xray, the doctor should properly 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 have taken place.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For example when a lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, which results in the case being lost for ever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is crucial to realize that not all mistakes made by lawyers are considered to be malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice, and attorneys have lots of freedom to make judgement calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of a client provided that the error was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be committed by not obtaining crucial documents or information, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are the failure to add certain defendants or claims, like forgetting a survival count for an unjustly-dead case, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember that it must be proven that, if not the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice suit, the plaintiff must prove actual financial losses incurred by an attorney's actions. This must be shown in a lawsuit by utilizing evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other documentation. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is referred to as the proximate cause.

The definition of malpractice can be found in a variety of ways. The most frequent kinds of malpractice are failing to meet a deadline, for example, a statute of limitation, failure to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence on the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance and breaching a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. mixing trust funds with attorney's personal accounts), mishandling of the case, and not communicating with the client.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensation damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for the expenses out of pocket and losses, for example medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. Victims may also claim non-economic damages such as pain and discomfort and loss of enjoyment their lives, and emotional distress.

Legal malpractice law firms cases often involve claims for compensatory and punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the damages caused by the attorney's negligence while the latter is designed to deter future malpractice by the defendant's side.