Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary duty to their clients, and they must act with a degree of diligence, skill and care. However, just like any other professional, attorneys make mistakes.

Not all mistakes made by attorneys are legal malpractice. To prove that legal malpractice lawyers has occurred, the aggrieved party has to prove the breach of duty, duty, causation and damage. Let's look at each of these components.

Duty-Free

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to use their training and skills to cure patients and not cause further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice rests on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if the actions of your doctor violated the duty to care and if those breaches caused injury or illness.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer needs to establish that a medical professional had an agreement with you and owed you a fiduciary responsibility to perform their duties with an acceptable level of competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care by failing to follow the accepted standards in their area of expertise. This is typically known as negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach of the defendant's duty directly contributed to your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will use evidence, such as your doctor/patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony, to demonstrate that the defendant's failure comply with the standard of care was the sole reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor owes patients duties of care that adhere to professional medical standards. If a doctor does not live up to those standards and this causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically, expert testimony from medical professionals who have the same training, qualifications, certifications and experience will help determine what the appropriate standard of treatment should be in a particular case. Federal and state laws and institute policies also help determine what doctors should perform for specific types of patients.

To win a malpractice case it is necessary to prove that the doctor breached his or duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of an injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation factor and it is essential that it be established. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an xray the doctor has to properly set the arm and then place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient is left with a permanent loss of usage of the arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For example the lawyer does not file a lawsuit within the prescribed time of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever, the injured party could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It's important to know that not all mistakes made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. Strategies and planning mistakes are not always considered to be misconduct. Attorneys have a wide range of discretion to make decisions as 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 provided that the error was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be triggered when a lawyer fails to find important documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice include a inability to include certain defendants or claims such as failing to file a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the continual and long-running failure to communicate with the client.

It's also important to keep in mind that it must be proven that, if not the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice is rejected if it's not proved. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is important to employ an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice suit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses resulting from the actions of an attorney. In a lawsuit, this has to be proved with evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the attorney and client. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is referred to as proximate causation.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. Some of the most common errors include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; failing to conduct a conflict check on an instance; applying the law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's circumstances; and breaching the fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust account funds with personal attorney accounts) or a mishandling of the case, and failing to communicate with the client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits 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 like pain and discomfort and loss of enjoyment their lives, as well as emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases, there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for losses caused by the attorney's negligence, while the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.