Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary obligation with their clients and are expected to behave with diligence, care and expertise. However, just like any other professional, attorneys make mistakes.

Not every mistake made by an attorney is negligence. To prove legal malpractice, an aggrieved party must show obligation, breach, causation and damages. Let's examine each of these aspects.

Duty

Medical professionals and doctors swear to apply their education and expertise to treat patients and not cause harm to others. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries sustained from medical malpractice rests on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney can help you determine whether or not the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injury or illness to you.

Your lawyer has to prove that the medical professional you hired owed the duty of a fiduciary to perform with reasonable competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors with similar education, experience, and training.

Your lawyer will also have to prove 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, and your attorney will compare the defendant's behavior to what a reasonable individual would do in the same circumstance.

Your lawyer must also demonstrate that the breach by the defendant directly caused your injury or loss. This is referred to as causation, and your attorney will use evidence like your doctor-patient records, witness statements and expert testimony to show that the defendant's failure to uphold the standards of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of care to his patients which reflects professional medical standards. If a doctor doesn't meet the standards, and the resulting failure causes an injury, then medical bonham Malpractice Law firm or negligence could result. Expert testimonials from medical professionals who have the same training, certifications, skills and experience can help determine the quality of care in a given situation. State and federal laws, along with policies of the institute, help define what doctors are required to provide for specific types of patients.

In order to win a malpractice claim it must be proved that the doctor violated his or her duty of care and that the violation was the sole cause of an injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation factor and it is essential to prove it. For instance, if a broken arm requires an xray the doctor must fix the arm and place it in a cast for proper healing. If the doctor is unable to do this and the patient suffers a permanent loss of the use of their arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are built on the basis of evidence that the attorney made mistakes that caused financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file an action within the timeframe of limitations, which results in the case being lost forever and the victim can bring legal malpractice actions.

It's important to know that not all errors made by attorneys are malpractice. Strategies and mistakes are not usually considered to be malpractice and lawyers have plenty of discretion to make decisions based on their judgments as long as they are reasonable.

In addition, the law allows attorneys considerable leeway to fail to conduct discovery on the behalf of clients, so in the event that it is not negligent or unreasonable. Failure to uncover important facts or documents, such as witness statements or medical reports can be a case of legal seminole malpractice lawyer. Other instances of malpractice include failure to add certain defendants or claims for example, like forgetting to make a survival claim in a wrongful-death case, or the repeated and extended failure to communicate with the client.

It is also important to remember that it must be established that, had it not been the negligence of the lawyer the plaintiff would have won the case. In the event that it is not, the plaintiff's claim for malpractice will be denied. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. For this reason, it's essential to choose an experienced attorney to represent you.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This must be shown in a lawsuit with evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between the client and attorney along with billing records and other documents. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the attorney's negligence. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. Some of the most common types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, including the statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a conflict-check or other due diligence of the case, not applying the law to the client's situation or breaking a fiduciary duty (i.e. the commingling of funds from a trust account with the attorney's personal accounts or handling a case in a wrong manner, and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

In most medical malpractice cases the plaintiff seeks compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of pocket expenses and losses such as medical and hospitals bills, the cost of equipment to aid recovery, and lost wages. In addition, the victims can be able to claim non-economic damages like pain and suffering or loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

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