How To Find The Perfect Birth Injury Case Online
Birth Injury Compensation
It could be devastating if your child suffers a birth injury as a result of an error by a medical professional. These injuries can require lifelong treatment and birth injury lawsuit care. You will be left with massive financial burdens.
Many birth injuries cases require a lengthy debate on medical malpractice versus medical errors. Our attorneys can explain the differences.
Costs of Treatment
Attorneys, insurance companies, and judges weigh the severity of the birth injury and the impact it has on the child's development in determining the amount compensation to be awarded. If a child requires extensive medical treatment which continues throughout the course of time, the value of the claim will increase.
Medical treatment for birth injury lawyer injuries can be expensive. Compensation for birth injury lawsuit birth injuries could aid families in covering these costs. Lawyers often work with experts in putting together a "Life Care Plan" which calculates the lifetime expenses incurred by a child's accident. These costs include hospitalization, surgeries, specialized medical treatments and prescriptions, home improvements and equipment, etc.
Your legal team will gather medical records from the pregnancy and birth of your child, as well as firsthand accounts from relatives. These records will be used to show that your child was injured as a result of medical malpractice and to demonstrate the extent to which the injury occurred.
Many states have passed medical indemnity funds in order to offer financial aid to families of children suffering from birth injuries. These funds either collect part of malpractice insurance premiums, or require hospitals and doctors to contribute to the resource pool. These programs can provide families with financial aid and lessen the need to file a lawsuit. JLARC staff discovered that these programs didn't always meet their objectives and should be improved.
Life Care Planning
Children who suffer from conditions such as cerebral palsy or hypoxic ischemic brain disease will have ongoing medical requirements. These needs include physical therapies as well as specialized equipment and home health treatment. In many cases, these costs can be quite significant.
A life-care planning document is one that lists the future medical, education, home and other expenses a child with disabilities will incur throughout his or her life. These plans are often used to determine the financial portion of damages in a birth injury lawsuit. These plans must be thorough and carefully drafted in order to satisfy the strict requirements of admissibility.
Life-care planning experts can help to create these documents with information and formal opinions from the child's doctor caregivers, therapists, and doctors. The plans include a detailed narrative about the initial injury and the diagnosis. They describe the underlying cause of the disability and its long-term consequences.
An attorney for medical malpractice should work with a life care planner to draft the best possible plan for their client's needs. The aim of the plan is to ensure that your child receives sufficient compensation to cover all of his or her future medical expenses and care. The money awarded is typically put into a special needs trust managed by an approved administrator. The amount awarded is usually adjusted periodically to reflect changes in the future needs of your child.
Suffering and Pain
In a birth injury lawsuit there are damages awarded for the plaintiff's past and future pain and suffering. This includes mental and physical stress caused by the injury and also an inability to participate in activities enjoyed by others.
You may also be able to recover lost income if an injury affects their work options or prohibits them from working all. Families may also be compensated to help care for an injured child.
The verdicts in medical malpractice cases are typically extremely high, since juries are often sympathetic to victims and hold doctors accountable for their errors. This is why many doctors and hospitals prefer to settle instead of taking on the possibility of a trial, which is expensive and stressful for the parties involved.
Both sides will gather evidence to back their arguments during the trial. They will share documents in the process known as discovery, which involves deposing a witnesses to get their statements under an oath. In many states, defendants can also demand access to the plaintiff's records.
A successful birth injury claim requires a lawyer with experience in these types of cases. A seasoned attorney will analyze your case to determine whether you are entitled to a lawsuit and will help achieve the highest settlement.
Punitive Damages
Certain medical malpractice lawsuits contain punitive damages. These are meant to communicate a message and discourage any future negligent behavior. They are granted in cases of grave negligence or when there was intentional misconduct on the part the medical professional. They are uncommon in cases of birth injuries.
After the attorney has identified appropriate defendants, they need to find and analyze evidence to back up their assertions. They must show that the injuries caused by medical professionals did not conform to the a high standard of medical care. The legal team also has to provide evidence of losses associated with the injuries, referred to as "damages." These damages could be economic or non-economic.
Economic losses are calculated by making estimates of ongoing treatment costs including long-term treatment facilities and other services. They may also factor in loss of earnings if the injury caused one or both parents to leave their jobs.
The legal team will create a demand form to be presented to the malpractice insurance companies. The document will outline the birth injuries and their effect on the child and the family, and request compensation for the loss. The attorneys will negotiate with medical providers until the settlement is reached. During this negotiation, the lawyers will share information about their cases with the other side through discovery, which involves taking depositions from witnesses who swear to their testimony under oath.