Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Attorneys hold a fiduciary relationship with their clients and are required to behave with care, diligence and skill. Attorneys make mistakes, as do other professional.

The mistakes made by an attorney are a result of malpractice. To establish legal malpractice, the aggrieved person must demonstrate obligation, breach, causation and damage. Let's take a look at each of these elements.

Duty

Doctors and other medical professionals swear to apply their education and experience to treat patients and not to cause further harm. A patient's legal right to receive compensation for injuries resulting from medical malpractice hinges on the concept of duty of care. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty to care and whether these violations caused injury or illness.

To prove a duty of care, your lawyer must to establish that a medical professional has an official relationship with you that have a fiduciary obligation to exercise an acceptable level of competence and care. Establishing that this relationship existed may require evidence, such as the records of your doctor-patient or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors who have similar experiences, education and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not submitting to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is commonly called negligence. Your attorney will compare what the defendant did to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must also show that the breach of the defendant's duty directly contributed to your loss or injury. This is known as causation. Your lawyer will rely on evidence, such as your doctor/patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's failure comply with the standard of care was the primary cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of care for his patients that is in line with professional medical standards. If a doctor fails to meet these standards and this results in injury, medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Expert witness testimony from medical professionals that have similar training, certifications, skills and experience can help determine the standard of care for a specific situation. State and federal laws, as well as guidelines from the institute, help determine what doctors are required to do for certain kinds of patients.

To win a Pleasant hills malpractice Lawsuit case it must be proven that the doctor breached his or duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation element and it is essential that it is established. If a doctor is required to perform an x-ray on an injured arm, they have to put the arm in a cast and then correctly place it. If the physician failed to do so and the patient suffered permanent loss of the use of the arm, then malpractice may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that shows the attorney's mistakes caused financial losses e failure to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitations, failure to conduct a check on conflicts or other due diligence of the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance or breaching a fiduciary obligation (i.e. mixing trust funds with personal attorney accounts) and mishandling the case, or not communicating with the client.

Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensation damages. These compensations compensate the victim for out-of pocket expenses and expenses like medical and hospitals bills, costs of equipment to aid in recovery and lost wages. In addition, victims can be able to claim non-economic damages such as suffering and suffering or loss of enjoyment life, and emotional stress.

In many legal malpractice cases, there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The former is intended to compensate the victim for losses caused by negligence on the part of the attorney while the latter is meant to prevent future mistakes by the defendant's side.