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from jen: I know that this month is themed Rejuvenate Your Health and medical lawsuits may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that, but I disagree. As a person who had a severe health crisis, I know first hand how imperative it is to know your rights. In any case please read this great and informative guest post. I think you will learn something, I know I did. Lawyers will not always be an honest advocate.
Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: The Difference Between Justified and Frivolous
Medical Malpractice lawsuits have, in recent years, become something of a controversial topic in the legal and political communities. Many believe that the majority of cases are frivolous, i.e. driven by people seeking money they’re not justified to receive. According to a Harvard School of Public Health 2006 study of 1,452 randomly selected malpractice claims, “Meritless or frivolous claims accounted for 13% to 16% of the direct cost of medical malpractice”. The study also found that 75 percent of the claims evaluated were justified.
But what is the difference between a justified claim and a frivolous one?
Justified
According to FindLaw, medical malpractice occurs when a professional health care provider’s, “treatment of a patient departs from a standard of care met by those with similar training and experience, resulting in harm to a patient or patients…. [In] a medical malpractice case, a plaintiff has to show an injury or damages that resulted from the doctor’s deviation from the standard of care applicable to the procedure.” Essentially, a health provider guilty of medical malpractice is guilty of negligence. Negligence is, “failure
to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances,” according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. According again to FindLaw, all of the follow must be confirmed for a medical malpractice lawsuit/claim to be justified:
“The existence of a duty owed by the health care professional to the plaintiff (for example, a doctor/patient relationship);
The applicable standard of care, and the health care professional’s deviation from that standard, which is deemed a breach of the duty owed the patient; A causal relationship between the health care professional’s deviation from the standard of care and the patient’s injury; Injury to the patient.”
Examples of justified medical malpractice cases are:
- A surgical instrument left inside of a patient.
- Incorrect diagnosis.
- A staff member’s abuse of a nursing home patient.
Frivolous
The term “frivolous” actually has a place in the legal world. A lawsuit is considered frivolous when one party has no or little merit for pursuing a lawsuit; effectively a frivolous lawsuit is one not based on or based very loosely on established laws. Lawyers have been known to take on frivolous malpractice cases because win or lose, they receive payment for their time.
Examples of these types of cases are:
- Someone injured in a hospital suing every single medical employee he/she came into contact with during the hospital stay.
- Suing a doctor because one suffers from the known and stipulated side effects of a drug or procedure.
- Suing over an injury that doesn’t exist.
Allison Dean is a writer bringing to us the difference between justified and frivolous lawsuits.
Allison also writes about medical malpractice cases.
