“You have a good medical malpractice case.”
These are seven words you never want me or any other medical malpractice lawyer to tell you. The reason is that every “good” medical malpractice case involves a catastrophic injury or death.
Juries are human. Humans avoid things which make them uncomfortable. Knowing that the medical professionals to whom we entrust our lives and those of our loved ones make mistakes that kill and injure people on a regular basis is deeply disturbing. Because of this deep-seated need to believe in doctors and hospitals, juries are reluctant to find against them in malpractice cases. However, when there is a catastrophic injury or death, the jury can get past this psychological impediment and find for the patient at trial.
One thing my practice in this area has taught me is that, contrary to what the public may think, avoidable medical mistakes are common. This should not be a surprising observation. Medical care in the 22nd Century is fantastically complicated and becoming more so every day. There are new medications which do new things and which have new side effects, new procedures which must be learned, new equipment which must be mastered, new procedures at the hospital or surgery center which change the way things have been done in the past, and new fellow employees, who may or may not be as competent as the old employees they are replacing. Medical care is being broken down into ever more specialties, which means that more doctors are participating in the care of a single patient. Every specialist who participates in the care writes a note describing the patient and what they did and thought about the patient. These notes must all be read and considered by subsequent treating professionals. Electronic medical records are everywhere today. They contain vast volumes of information about the patient, which may be too much information for a person to absorb but which must be considered in treating the patient. In light of all this, is it any wonder avoidable mistakes are made?
Thankfully, most medical mistakes do not cause catastrophic injuries or death. Many may cause such slight injury that they go unnoticed.
Largely because medicine is so complicated today, medical malpractice cases are equally complicated. Five specialists participated in the care of the injured patient. Five experts in the same specialty areas must review the care and evaluate it. Did the care involve a mistake? Was the mistake one that should not have happened? Did the mistake, if there was one, cause significant injury? Every one of those experts costs money, money that I must advance and money that I don’t get back unless I make a recovery for my client. I also don’t get paid a fee unless I win the case and make a recovery for my client. My fee and reimbursement for the costs I have advanced must come out of the recovery before my client receives anything. The settlement or verdict has to be large enough to pay me, reimburse the costs and still have enough left over for my client to have made the whole thing worthwhile for the lawyer and for the client. Patients with smaller injuries simply cannot afford to bring suit and lawyers cannot afford to represent them. There has to be a better way, but, at least today, there is not.
So we are back where we started. The worse the injury, the harder it is for the jury to look away and pretend no one did anything wrong. A bad injury alone does not make a good malpractice case, however. A good malpractice case still needs strong evidence of an avoidable mistake that caused the injury and a good lawyer to present that evidence to the jury. But without a catastrophic injury or death, a successful outcome will be difficult to achieve. If you or a loved one are injured by medical malpractice, pray it does not result in a “good” case.
The post The Seven Words You Never Want To Hear appeared first on Sandweg & Ager PC.