What You Must Know Before Starting A Medical Malpractice Case?

By Author: James Wilkens
Total Articles: 20
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According to a study about 5 to 10 percent of patients leave the hospitals having been victims of medical malpractice. However, due to pitfalls in medical malpractice law, few will be able to recover for their damages in court. To find out if you have a viable cause of action against the doctor, contact medical malpractice lawyers in your area, who will review your case and give an opinion on the probability of success of your lawsuit.
Here are few things to consider:
1. Jurors prefer to find in favor of doctors and hospitals
Jurors often decide cases based on personal preferences, emotions or something totally unrelated to the case, like victim’s race, nationality, age. Their actions are unfortunate since some plaintiffs, with otherwise good medical malpractice cases will lose simply because the jury took a dislike to him or her. On the other hand, jurors tend to trust doctors and hospitals. Just like any other person, they have been treated by a physician or have gone to the ...
... emergency room, and were cured from their illness or disease. They tend to respect formidable looking physicians and be biased in their favor.
2. Statute of limitations must not have expired
In New York, a person has two and a half years from the act of medical malpractice to start a lawsuit to recover damages for injuries sustained. In addition, if the action is against a public hospital, the hospital must be served with a notice of the claim in a limited amount of time. Furthermore, if the patient dies as the result of physician’s negligence the statute of limitations is two years from the date of death. It is important to be aware of these timeframes and a lay person will most likely not know the different deadlines. Hiring medical malpractice law firm to represent you, assuming you retained them within the time allowed, will ensure that all the legal procedures and rules are closely followed.
3. Negligence of the doctor must result in serious injuries
Lawsuits against doctors and hospitals are expensive; not only does one have to pay for all court expenditures, but there are also sizeable costs to take depositions of all parties, as well as expert witness fees, which run in thousands and thousands of dollars. If the person injured due to the doctor’s negligence recovered from the illness, or if the injury is minor, the lawsuit may not be cost effective to pursue. Consult with your attorney before proceeding with the case as to what the disbursements might be, so that you can make an informed decision.
4. Experts are expensive
Doctors who testify for either side of the lawsuit usually take a day from their daily practice to come to court. Very often they are detained for more than a day for testimony and the costs of having their office closed for two or three days runs into a sizeable amount of money, for which the physician needs to be reimbursed.
Your attorney will be able to advise you how much money the expert in your medical malpractice case is likely to charge for his court appearance, knowing the number can help you calculate the expenses of the litigation and whether the case is worth pursuing.

Duffy & Duffy one of the preeminent Medical Malpractice Law Firms provides legal counsel to victims of medical malpractice and negligence with unparalleled results.