Birth Injury Lawsuits Explained
Birth is a dangerous and stressful time, but families expect their medical professionals and doctors to adhere to a high standard of medical care. Birth injuries can be devastating for families if they’re not treated appropriately.
Contact a birth injury attorney for assistance if you suspect that your child has suffered a preventable injury during birth due to medical negligence. Reputable lawyers will evaluate your case free of charge and will not charge upfront fees. A successful claim requires the proof of the four elements of your case.
Duty of Care
Few life events are more joyous and special than the birth of a child. Unfortunately, this process could be difficult for parents when medical errors cause severe injuries to their baby during birth and labor. These mistakes can be irreparable and cause a lifetime of challenges for a family.
Doctors and other medical professionals are legally bound to treat patients with the care and skill that is normally expected of health care providers in their field in similar situations. This is called the duty of care. You must prove that a medical professional breached this duty to win a case. This usually involves demonstrating how the medical professional’s actions, or lack thereof, differed from what a competent and properly trained medical professional would do under the same circumstances.
The second part of a negligence claim is causation. You must establish, through medical records and expert testimony, that the at-fault provider’s negligence led to the injury of your child. A doctor, for example could not have observed your child’s vitals during labor and delivery. This could have resulted in prolonged oxygen deprivation, which in turn caused brain damage.
The final aspect of a successful negligence case is damages. You must prove that you as well as your child suffered significant financial losses, which are quantifiable, resulting from the healthcare professional at fault’s inability to meet their obligation of care. This includes future and past medical costs, lost wages, and non-economic losses such as discomfort and pain.
Causation
Medical professionals have a responsibility to patients to provide treatment that is in line with the standard of care in their field of. If a doctor or nurse does not meet the standards of care, they could cause injury to the patient and result in an action for damages. To be successful in a case that involves birth injuries, a lawyer will have to prove that the breach of duty led to the injury to your child. This must be proved with evidence such as medical records or expert testimony.
It is also essential to prove that your child would not be injured when a medical professional been able to provide the level of care that is expected. Medical experts are asked to examine the case to determine if the physician or hospital was acting in a manner not in accordance with the accepted medical standards.
Birth injuries can be life-changing and require medical care for the rest of your life. It is important that you hold hospitals and doctors accountable for their negligence, and receive compensation to meet the future requirements of your child.
A lawyer who is experienced in handling medical malpractice cases can handle the entire legal process for you, from responding to insurance requests and filing a lawsuit against the responsible parties. They can also develop an argument using evidence, get expert testimony, retrieve documents and medical records, and fight for fair settlements that cover the family’s lifetime medical costs and expenses.
Damages
A birth injury lawsuit requires the expertise of medical experts who will examine medical records, testimonies from you and your family, and other evidence. They will assist you in proving that the hospital or doctor involved in your case violated their duty of care and caused your child to suffer injuries. They will then calculate the damage you’ve suffered because of these injuries. These include the current and future medical expenses in addition to lost wages, loss of quality of life, emotional distress and other losses.
It can be a devastating experience for your family when nurses, doctors and other medical staff make inexcusable mistakes prior to, during or after the birth your child. It can be also difficult to take legal action against doctors and hospitals who may have committed negligence or malpractice. They often have their own legal teams who are on call 24/7 to protect their clients and deny claims, or birth injury lawyer reduce settlement amounts.
When you employ a New York birth injury lawyer to represent you, you can hold medical professionals responsible for your injuries. Your lawyer will contact the insurers and then file a claim in court, and create a strong argument based on evidence to establish liability. They will also advocate for you to win a fair jury verdict or settlement for your damages and costs over your entire life. They can also make a claim in time for any applicable statute of limitation in the event that the clock begins to tick from the time the malpractice or negligence occurred.
Statute of Limitations
A successful claim for compensation in a case of birth injury requires four components. Your lawyer can help you understand the factors and craft a strong legal case to support your claim.
Medical negligence claims require that you prove that the defendant had an obligation of care for your child, that they breached this duty, and birth injury lawyer that this breach caused the injuries to your child. For a claim to succeed, it is also essential to prove causation which means that your child’s injuries could not have occurred without the defendant’s actions (or failure to act).
The defendants can challenge any of these elements. They could argue that there is no doctor-patient relationship or that the standard of care isn’t what you claim it is. Additionally, they could challenge your evidence or expert witnesses’ opinions.
To prove a breach of duty, you’ll have to provide medical records as well as other documentation as well as a written statement of what went wrong during the birth of your child. You’ll also need to submit the demand package, which includes an inventory of all the individuals you think should be named as defendants. An experienced lawyer can assist you establish the appropriate defendants and ensure there’s adequate insurance coverage. A lawyer can help advance costs associated with litigation, like the costs of highly skilled medical experts. This can help reduce some of the financial stress associated with litigating claims for birth injuries.