Do you have a medical negligence case?

The majority of health care providers are compassionate and conscientious people who serve others through the practice of medical and nursing care.

However, unfortunately, there are times when healthcare providers make serious mistakes that could easily be avoided that cause serious injuries or even death to their patients.

In these situations, the injured party must prove each of the following points by a preponderance of the evidence:

• That the health care provider was negligent in the care and treatment of the patient. This is accomplished by showing the health care provider’s care fell below a legally recognized standard of reasonable and prudent medical and/or nursing care;
• That any such negligence was a proximate cause of the new injury or death involved in the case. This means that it should have been foreseeable to a reasonable health care provider that the alleged negligent conduct could result in an injury to the patient; and, that in this instance the patient sustained injuries which, in reasonable medical probability, would not have been sustained but for the negligence of the defendant health care provider;
• That a specific amount of money damages, if any, would fairly and reasonably compensate the injured party for the injuries and damages he or she sustained in the past, and/or will probably sustain in the future, as a result of the occurrence or injury or death in issue.

In the vast majority of cases, proving that a health care provider acted negligently and that the negligence proximately caused the injury and damages requires that an expert in the same field of health care testify under oath that the health care provider was negligent and that the negligence proximately caused the complained of injury.

Of course, other theories of health care liability may also apply depending upon the factual and legal circumstances of the particular case.

In some cases, the complained of injuries and damages are caused by some combination of physician negligence, nursing negligence, hospital negligence, a defective medical product, or a medication error.

This “burden of proof” is most often an extremely difficult and expensive burden for a health care malpractice victim to sustain.

As a practical matter, both the liability and damage evidence must be compelling for a medical liability lawsuit to be successful. For this reason, medical liability cases are among the most difficult civil liability cases to win in court.

In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed a law that limits the amount of non-economic damages (pain and suffering, physical impairment, mental impairment, and physical disfigurement) to a total of $250,000 per medical provider not to exceed $500,000 in the event there is more than one negligent healthcare provider.

We have experience with cases involving:

• Failure to give medication;
• Failure to refer to an appropriate physician resulting in death;
• Failure to properly diagnose knee injury resulting in amputation;
• Failure to monitor patient post operation;
• Failure to monitor fetal heart monitor during labor;
• Failure to perform newborn testing to prevent injury;
• Failure to respond to patient losing blood;
• Failure to monitor/prevent decubitus ulcers/bedsores; and
• Failure to remove foreign objects following surgery.