Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys are bound by a fiduciary obligation to their clients and are required to act with skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Some mistakes made by lawyers are legal malpractice. To prove legal malpractice, an victim must prove obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's review each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors swear to use their training and experience to help patients and not cause further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries suffered due to medical malpractice is based on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty to care and if the breach resulted in your injury or illness.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer will need to establish that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you, in which they were bound by a fiduciary duty to act with a reasonable level of expertise and care. This can be demonstrated through eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient documents and expert testimony from doctors who have similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also have to prove that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their area of expertise. This is commonly referred to by the term negligence. Your lawyer will evaluate what the defendant did with what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation.

In addition, your lawyer must prove that the defendant's breach of duty directly caused damage or loss to you. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence like your doctor or patient documents, witness testimony and expert testimony, to show that the defendant's inability to meet the standards of care was the direct cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is responsible for the duties of care that are consistent with professional standards in medical practice. If a doctor fails meet these standards and this causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that possess similar qualifications, training or experience can help determine the quality of care in any given situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies can also be used to define what doctors must do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be established that the doctor violated his or her duty of take care of patients and that the breach was a direct reason for an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation component and it is essential to establish. For example in the event that a damaged arm requires an xray, the doctor should properly set the arm and then place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor was unable to perform this task and the patient was left with permanent loss of use of that arm, then malpractice could have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. For instance the lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever, the injured party can bring legal selma malpractice lawsuit actions.

It is important to realize that not all errors made by lawyers constitute illegal. Mistakes in strategy and planning are not usually considered to be malpractice, and attorneys have plenty of discretion in making judgment calls so long as they are reasonable.

The law also allows lawyers an enormous amount of discretion to not conduct discovery on behalf of a client as long as the error was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be caused by not obtaining crucial documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice are the inability to add certain defendants or claims, such as the mistake of not remembering a survival number for a wrongful-death case, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to keep in mind the fact that the plaintiff must demonstrate that, if it weren't the lawyer's negligence they could have won their case. The plaintiff's claim for eagle malpractice attorney will be dismissed when it isn't proven. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice claims complicated. For this reason, it's important to find an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must demonstrate that the lawyer's actions led to actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. In a lawsuit, this has to be demonstrated using evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the harm caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is referred to as the proximate cause.

The act of malpractice can be triggered in a variety of different ways. Some of the more common types of Northfield Malpractice Lawsuit include failing to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitations, failing to conduct a conflict check or other due diligence on the case, not applying the law to a client's case or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. merging funds from a trust account the attorney's personal accounts as well as failing to communicate with the client are just a few examples of misconduct.

Medical malpractice suits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensations compensate the victim for expenses out of pocket and expenses like medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to help recover and lost wages. Victims can also claim non-economic damages, such as discomfort and pain and loss of enjoyment their lives, as well as emotional anxiety.

Legal malpractice cases usually involve claims for compensatory as well as punitive damages. The former compensates the victim for the losses caused by the negligence of the attorney, while the latter is designed to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.