3 Major Elements of a Medical Negligence Lawsuit

You might hear a lot about medical malpractice cases in the papers, with people winning millions of dollars in negligence lawsuits, but the reality is losing the case at trial is much more common. The majority of medical negligence lawsuits typically result in defense verdicts, meaning the doctor or other medical provider wins the trial.

Studies, including one by Johns Hopkins as reported by MSNBC, have revealed that over 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors (some claim that number is closer to a half-million - it's the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, yet there are several key elements that must be met for a medical negligence claim to be successful.

Generally, the measure of whether or not proper medical care was provided is based upon whether the patient would have been given a similar standard of care from a different health professional under similar circumstances. As it can be hard to say with 100% certainty, setting up a consultation with a medical negligence lawyer to determine whether the three major elements of this type of lawsuit is usually the best course of action.

Failing to Meet Standards of Care

The first component of a medical negligence claim is failing to meet the standards of care. The law acknowledges that there are certain care standards recognized by the profession as being acceptable treatment by prudent healthcare professions under similar circumstances, otherwise known as the standard of care. The standard of care is defined by what another healthcare professional would have done in the same situation. A patient has the right to expect care that is delivered consistently with those standards. If it's determined that the standard of care was not met, the provider is considered to have been negligent.

Proving negligence can be difficult as there may be little more to rely upon than a doctor's own notes, which may be self-serving. That means a lawyer must work with medical experts to determine if what the healthcare professional actual did and what they should have done, as few are willing to admit to a mistake.

An Injury Resulting From Negligence

The medical negligence must have resulted in an injury to the patient for it to be considered medical malpractice. It's not sufficient enough that the professional simply violated standards of care, the patient has to prove he or she suffered from an injury that wouldn't have occurred in the absence of negligence. It must be proved definitively that negligence caused the injury.

Significant Damages

As medical negligence cases are usually very expensive to litigate, often requiring the testimony of many medical experts and hours of deposition testimony, the patient must be able to show that they sustained significant damage from the result of the injury caused by medical negligence. If the damage was relatively minor, the cost of pursuing the case may be more than the eventual recovery, so to pursue this type of claim, the injury typically must have resulted in unusual pain, loss of income, suffering and hardship, disability, past and/or future medical bills.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.