Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

The mistakes made by an attorney is negligence. To prove that legal malpractice has occurred, the aggrieved party has to prove obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's look at each of these elements.

Duty

Doctors and other medical professionals swear by their training and skills to cure patients and not to cause harm to others. The duty of care is the foundation for the right of patients to receive compensation if they are injured by medical negligence. Your lawyer can help determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated the duty of care, and whether these breaches resulted in injuries or illness to you.

Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional owed you an obligation of fiduciary to act with reasonable competence and care. Proving that this relationship existed may require evidence such as your doctor-patient records or eyewitness evidence, or expert testimony from doctors who have similar experience, education and training.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not living up to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is often called negligence, and your attorney will assess the conduct of the defendant to what a reasonable person would take in the same scenario.

Your lawyer must also prove that the defendant's negligence directly caused your loss or injury. This is referred to as causation, and Vimeo your lawyer will make use of evidence like your doctor-patient reports, witness statements and expert testimony to show that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor is obligated to patients to perform duties of care that are consistent with the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a doctor does not meet those standards, and the resulting failure causes an injury that is medically negligent, negligence could result. Typically experts' testimony from medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of care should be in a particular situation. Federal and state laws and institute policies also determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.

To be successful in a malpractice case the evidence must prove that the doctor did not fulfill his or her duty to care and that this violation was the primary cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is called the causation component, and it is vital that it is established. If a doctor is required to take an x-ray of an injured arm, they must put the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient suffers a permanent loss of usage of the arm, then malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims are founded on the evidence that the attorney committed mistakes that led to financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, leading to the case being lost for ever, the injured party may bring legal malpractice claims.

However, it's important to realize that not all mistakes made by lawyers are a sign of malpractice. Errors involving strategy and planning are not generally considered to be malpractice, and attorneys have the ability in making judgment calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery for a client, so long as the reason for the delay was not unreasonable or negligence. Failure to uncover important documents or facts like medical reports or witness statements could be a sign of legal malpractice. Other examples of malpractice are the inability to add certain defendants or claims, like forgetting a survival count for wrongful death cases, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to keep in mind the necessity for the plaintiff to prove that, if not the lawyer's negligence they would have prevailed. The plaintiff's claim for malpractice is deemed invalid in the event that it is not proved. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice claims complicated. For this reason, it's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

In order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit, plaintiffs must show financial losses caused by the actions of the attorney. This should be proved in a lawsuit through evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney, billing records and other records. A plaintiff must also prove that a reasonable attorney would have prevented the harm caused by the lawyer's negligence. This is referred to as proximate cause.

The causes of malpractice vary. Some of the most common malpractices include: failing the deadline or statute of limitations; failing to perform the necessary conflict checks on an instance; applying the law improperly to a client's circumstances; and breaching the fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account with the attorney's own accounts or handling a case improperly and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These damages compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as losses, such as medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to aid recovery, and lost wages. Additionally, victims may seek non-economic damages, such as suffering and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life, and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases, there are claims for punitive and compensatory damages. The first is meant to compensate victims for losses caused by the attorney's negligence while the latter is meant to discourage future lake worth malpractice law firm by the defendant's side.