Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

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

Some mistakes made by lawyers are malpractice. To prove negligence in a legal sense the aggrieved party must prove duty, breach of duty, causation and damages. Let's review each of these elements.

Duty-Free

Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to use their skill and training to cure patients, not to cause further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice hinges on the notion of duty of care. Your lawyer can help determine whether or not the actions of your doctor violated this duty of care, and whether these breaches resulted in injuries or illness to you.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer needs to prove that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you in which they owed you a fiduciary responsibility to exercise reasonable expertise and care. Proving that this relationship existed could require evidence like the records of your doctor-patient eyewitness accounts and expert testimony from doctors who have similar qualifications, experience and education.

Your lawyer must also show that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not submitting to the accepted standards of practice in their field. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will examine the defendant's actions with what a reasonable person would do in the same circumstance.

Finally, your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly resulted in damage or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence such as your doctor-patient documents, witness statements, and expert testimony to show that the defendant's failure to uphold the standard of care in your case was a direct cause of your injury or loss.

Breach

A doctor has a duty of care to his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor does not meet these standards and this causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence may occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar qualifications, training and certifications will help determine what the appropriate standard of medical care should be in a particular situation. State and federal laws and institute policies can also be used to determine what doctors are required to do for specific types of patients.

To prevail in a huntley malpractice lawyer lawsuit it is necessary to prove that the doctor violated his or duty of care and that the breach was the direct cause of injury. This is referred to in legal terms as the causation element, and it is crucial that it is established. If a doctor is required to obtain an xray of a broken arm, they must put the arm in a cast and properly place it. If the doctor failed to do this and the patient was left with permanent loss of use of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims rely on the evidence that proves that the lawyer's mistakes caused financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer fails to file a lawsuit within the statute of limitations, resulting in the case being lost for ever and the victim could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by lawyers are a sign of illegal. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning aren't usually considered to be a violation of the law and lawyers have lots of freedom to make judgement calls so long as they're reasonable.

Likewise, the law gives attorneys the right to conduct discovery on the behalf of their clients, as long as the action was not unreasonable or negligent. Legal malpractice can be committed when a lawyer fails to find important documents or facts, like medical reports or witness statements. Other examples of malpractice include a failure to add certain defendants or claims for example, like forgetting to file a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the frequent and persistent failure to communicate with clients.

It's also important to note that it must be proved that, had it not been for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the case. If not, the plaintiff's claims for malpractice will be denied. This makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.

Damages

To win a legal malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff must show actual financial losses resulting from an attorney's actions. This has to be demonstrated in a lawsuit by utilizing evidence like expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney or billing records, and other evidence. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the harm that was caused by the attorney's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation.

Malpractice can occur in many different ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include failing to meet a deadline, such as the statute of limitations, a failure to conduct a conflict-check or any other due diligence on a case, improperly applying law to a client's situation or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. commingling trust account funds with personal attorney accounts), mishandling of the case, and failing to communicate with a client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically involve claims for compensatory damages. These compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses and losses, for example medical and hospital bills, the cost of equipment that aids in recovering, and lost wages. In addition, victims can claim non-economic damages, like pain and suffering or loss of enjoyment life and emotional suffering.

In a lot of legal malpractice cases, there are lawsuits for punitive as well as compensatory damages. The former compensates the victim for the losses caused by the attorney's negligence while the latter is intended to discourage any future malpractice on the part of the defendant.