Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are required to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility to their clients and they are expected act with diligence, skill and care. But, as with all professionals attorneys make mistakes.

There are many mistakes made by an attorney are a result of malpractice. To demonstrate legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each one of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to use their skill and training to cure patients, not cause additional harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice is based on the concept of the duty of care. Your lawyer can assist you determine if your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and if these breaches caused injuries or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer must to demonstrate that a medical professional had an agreement with you in which they had a fiduciary obligation to perform their duties with an acceptable level of competence and care. To prove that the relationship existed, you may require evidence such as your records of your doctor-patient relationship or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors who have similar knowledge, experience, and education.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards of care in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will compare the defendant's behavior with what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also prove that the breach of the defendant's duty led directly to your injury or loss. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence such as your medical reports, witness statements and expert testimony to show that the defendant's inability to adhere to the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your loss or injury.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of care for his patients that conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor doesn't meet these standards, and the failure results in an injury or medical malpractice, then negligence could occur. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who have similar training, certifications or experience can help determine the quality of care in a given situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors should provide for specific kinds of patients.

To prevail in a cortez malpractice attorney lawsuit it must be established that the doctor did not fulfill his or her duty to care and that this violation was the sole cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation component and it is essential that it be established. If a physician has to take an x-ray of a broken arm, they must place the arm in a cast and correctly place it. If the doctor was unable to do so and the patient was left with a permanent loss of use of the arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on the evidence that the attorney made mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. Legal malpractice claims can be filed by the injured party if, for example, the attorney fails to file the lawsuit within the prescribed time, which results in the case being permanently lost.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by attorneys are mistakes that constitute malpractice. Mistakes in strategy and planning are not generally considered to be malpractice and lawyers have a lot of latitude in making judgment calls so long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery on behalf of a client provided that the decision was not arbitrary or a result of negligence. Legal malpractice can be committed by failing to discover important documents or information, such as medical reports or witness statements. Other instances of malpractice include failure to add certain claims or defendants, such as forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful-death case or the continual and extended inability to communicate with a client.

It is also important to consider the fact that the plaintiff must prove that, if not for the lawyer's careless conduct, they would have prevailed. Otherwise, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This makes it difficult to file an action for legal malpractice. It's crucial to hire an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

In order to prevail in a legal pataskala malpractice attorney lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate actual financial losses resulting from the actions of the attorney. This should be proved in a lawsuit with evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney, billing records and other evidence. In addition, the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is referred to as the proximate cause.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. The most frequent errors include: not meeting an expiration date or statute of limitations; not conducting an investigation into a conflict in a case; applying the law improperly to a client's specific circumstances; and violating the fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts) and mishandling the case, and failing to communicate with clients.

In most medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff will seek compensatory damages. These damages compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and expenses like hospital and medical bills, costs of equipment to help recover and lost wages. Additionally, victims may be able to claim non-economic damages like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases there are claims for punitive or compensatory damages. The former is intended to compensate the victim for losses caused by the attorney's negligence and the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice on the part of the defendant.