Medical Malpractice Litigation

Medical malpractice lawsuits are complex and time-consuming. It can be costly for medical malpractice both plaintiff and defendant.

To be awarded monetary compensation for malpractice, a patient must demonstrate that the substandard medical treatment led to their injury. This involves establishing four legal elements such as a professional obligation, breach of that duty, injury, and resulting damages.

Discovery

The most important element of a medical malpractice case is the gathering of evidence. This can be done through written interrogatories and requests for documents. Interrogatories are questions that must be answered under oath by the opposing party to the lawsuit and are used to establish the facts for presentation at trial. Requests for production of documents allow for tangible items to be retrieved for example, medical records or test results.

In many cases, your attorney will interview the doctor who is in charge of the defense deposition which is recorded as a question-and-answer session. This permits your attorney to ask the witness or doctor questions that might not be allowed during trial. It can be extremely useful in cases with experts as witnesses.

The information gathered during pretrial discovery will be used to support your claim at trial.

Breach of the standard care

Injuries caused by a breach of the normal care

Proximate cause

A doctor's inability to use the level of expertise and knowledge of doctors in their field, and that caused injury or injury to the patient

Mediation

While medical malpractice cases are sometimes essential, they also have major disadvantages for both parties. The expense, stress and time commitment required to conduct a trial can have a negative impact on plaintiffs. For defendant health care professionals, a trial could result in humiliation as well as a loss of prestige. It can also have detrimental effects on their career and practice because the monetary payments they receive as part of a settlement before trial are recorded in national databases of practitioner and the state medical licensing board and the medical societies.

Mediation is a more cost-efficient and time-efficient method of settling an issue involving medical malpractice. The parties can negotiate more freely since they are not burdened by the expense of a trial, as well as the risk of jury verdicts to be diminished.

Both sides must provide brief details of the case to the mediator prior to mediation (a "mediation brief"). At this point, parties usually communicate via their lawyer and not directly with one another. Direct communication can be used as evidence against them in court. As the mediation continues, it is a good idea to focus on the strengths of your case, and be prepared to recognize its weaknesses as well. This will help the mediator to bridge any gaps in understanding and give you an acceptable proposal.

Trial

The goal of those who work on tort reform is to create a system that compensates those who are injured by physician negligence in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost. A number of states have enacted tort reform measures to cut costs and also to prevent frivolous claims arising from medical malpractice.

The majority of doctors in the United States have malpractice insurance as a way to protect themselves from accusations of professional negligence. Some of these policies are required as a condition of hospital privileges or work with a medical organization.

In order to receive compensation for injuries caused due to negligence by a medical professional, the injured patient must prove that the doctor failed to meet the standards of care applicable to his or her profession. This is known as proxy causation and is a key element in a medical malpractice case.

A lawsuit begins when a civil summons has been filed in the court of your choice. After that the parties have to engage in a process of disclosure. This includes written interrogatories, as well as the creation of documents such as medical records. Also, it involves depositions (deponents are questioned by attorneys under an oath) and admission requests which are statements that one side wishes the other to admit, either in full or in part.

The burden of proof in a medical malpractice case is extremely heavy and the damages awarded will take into consideration the actual economic loss, like lost income, the cost of future medical care and non-economic losses like pain and suffering. It is essential to work with an experienced attorney when trying to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Settlement

Settlements are the simplest method to settle medical malpractice lawsuits. In general, the actual dollar value of a case is negotiated between the plaintiff and the defendants (often through or alongside the defendant's malpractice/professional liability insurer). The result is a check for the patient, which is then paid to the plaintiff's lawyer who then deposits the check into an account called an escrow. The lawyer then deducts the case expenses and legal fees per the representation agreement, and then the injured patient receives compensation.

To prevail in a medical malpractice lawsuit, an aggrieved patient must prove that a physician or other healthcare provider owed them a duty of care, and then violated that duty by failing apply the necessary level of knowledge and expertise in their field, and that as a proximate result of the breach, the victim suffered injury, and these damages are quantifiable in terms of monetary loss.

The United States has a system of 94 federal district courts, which are similar to state trial courts, and each of these courts has jurors and judges which hears cases. In certain circumstances, a medical malpractice case may be transferred to one of these courts. In the United States, physicians carry medical malpractice insurance to safeguard themselves from claims of injury that was not intended. Physicians should understand the structure and operation of our legal system so they can respond appropriately to a claim brought against them.