The Injury Requirement of a Medical Malpractice Case

There are instances where health care providers do not follow ordinary standards of care in treating patients, but not all those instances are appropriate for a medical malpractice lawsuit.  If you, or a loved one, have been mistreated by a health care provider, it may just be an unfortunate experience for which there is no legal recourse. If you are unhappy with the results of a surgery or if you had complications from a surgery, it does not mean you are entitled to a medical malpractice claim.  In order to succeed in a medical malpractice suit, a person must actually be injured and the cause of the injury must be the negligence of a health care provider.

How an Injury can be Caused

An injury is any wrong or harm done by one individual to another’s body, rights, reputation, or property.  When someone is sick, it can be difficult to prove an injury is caused by the negligence of a health care provider and is not a natural course of the illness. For example, a person who has cancer and does not get the chemotherapy he needs may claim he was injured by that failure, but it will be difficult for him to prove the cancer would not have killed him if he had had the treatment. Likewise, a person whose cancer goes undiagnosed would have to prove that the misdiagnosis led to his injury and that the underlying cancer was not the cause of the injury. 

Injury Litigation

There are instances where the injury is obvious.  If a patient has burns on his chest where electrodes had been placed, it is easy to see the injury was caused by the either an equipment failure, or a failure to properly use the equipment.  In most malpractice lawsuits though, it is not as clear to determine the injury or the cause.  Expert witnesses play a key role in litigation in determining the injury and the cause. 

Opposing Injury Opinions

Complicated cases often have experts on each side of the case with opposing opinions as to the cause and nature of the injury.  Some experts make a living testifying for the defense, and some make a living testifying for plaintiffs.  Attorneys are allowed to disclose to juries how often an expert testifies and what he gets paid to do it.  Juries can be suspicious of experts who make a lot of money giving testimony because they are aware the doctor is getting paid to give his opinion and the more often the expert does so, the less credible his opinion may become.

Complications of Determining Cause

While the concept of an injury is one with which we are all familiar, it is important to remember that an injury is a very complicated element of a medical malpractice suit.  Every case has complex facts surrounding the injury element for medical malpractice and speaking with an experienced medical malpractice suit is the best way to determine if there has in fact been an injury caused by the negligence of a professional health care provider.  A good attorney will consult a medical expert to conduct a medical investigation to determine whether there was an injury as well the cause of the injury.