Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Attorneys have a fiduciary connection with their clients and are required to behave with diligence, care and competence. Attorneys make mistakes, just like every other professional. The errors made by attorneys are considered to be malpractice. To prove legal negligence, the aggrieved must show duty, breach of obligation, causation, as well as damage. Let's look at each of these components. Duty-Free Medical professionals and doctors take an oath to apply their expertise and knowledge to treat patients and not causing further harm. The legal right of a patient to compensation for injuries suffered from medical malpractice rests on the concept of the duty of care. Your lawyer can help determine if your doctor's actions breached this duty of care, and whether these breaches caused harm or illness to your. Your lawyer must demonstrate that the medical professional you hired owed the fiduciary obligation to act with reasonable competence and care. This relationship may be proven by eyewitness testimony, doctor-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors with similar education, experience, and training. Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional breached their duty of care by not adhering to the accepted standards of their field. This is usually described as negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable person would do in the same situation. Your lawyer must also show that the breach by the defendant led directly to your injury or loss. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will make use of evidence like your doctor-patient records, witness statements and expert testimony to show that the defendant's inability to meet the standards 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 conform to the highest standards of medical professionalism. If a physician fails to meet those standards and the failure causes injury, then medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Expert testimony from medical professionals who have similar training, certificates or experience can help determine the level of care in a given situation. State and federal laws as well as institute policies also define what doctors must do for specific types of patients. In order to win a malpractice claim the evidence must prove that the doctor did not fulfill his or her duty of care and that this violation was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is referred to as the causation factor and it is vital that it is established. For instance when a broken arm requires an xray the doctor must properly place the arm and put it in a cast for proper healing. If the physician failed to do this and the patient suffered a permanent loss of use of that arm, then malpractice may have occurred. Causation Legal malpractice claims are built on the basis of evidence that a lawyer made mistakes that caused financial losses to the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the victim if, for example, the lawyer fails to file the lawsuit within the timeframes set by the statute of limitations and this results in the case being thrown out forever. It is important to understand that not all mistakes by attorneys constitute malpractice. The mistakes that involve strategy and planning do not typically constitute malpractice attorneys are given lots of freedom in making judgment calls so long as they are reasonable. Likewise, the law gives attorneys a wide range of options to refuse to conduct a discovery process on the behalf of their clients, as long as it was not negligent or unreasonable. Failing to discover important details or documents, such as medical reports or statements of witnesses or medical reports, could be an instance of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice could be a failure to add certain claims or defendants such as failing to file a survival count in a wrongful death lawsuit or the consistent and long-running inability to communicate with the client. It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff has to prove that, if not for the lawyer's negligent conduct, they would have won their case. The claim of the plaintiff for malpractice will be dismissed in the event that it is not proved. This makes it difficult to file an action for legal malpractice. For this reason, it's important to choose a seasoned attorney to represent you. Damages In order to prevail in a legal malpractice case, plaintiffs must show financial losses resulting from the actions of the attorney. In the case of a lawsuit this has to be proved with evidence, like expert testimony or correspondence between the client and attorney. In addition the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable lawyer would have prevented the damage caused by the attorney's negligence. This is referred to as proximate causation. Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. The most frequent types of malpractice include: failing to meet a deadline, for example, the statute of limitations, failing to conduct a conflict-check or other due diligence on a case, improperly 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 own accounts, mishandling a case and failing to communicate with the client are all examples of malpractice. Medical malpractice lawsuits typically include claims for compensatory damages. These damages compensate the victim for out-of-pocket expenses as well as expenses like hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to help recover and lost wages. In addition, victims may claim non-economic damages, like suffering and suffering as well as loss of enjoyment life, and emotional stress. Legal malpractice cases typically involve claims for compensatory or punitive damages. The former compensates victims for losses resulting from the negligence of the attorney, while the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.