Dallas Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death

Texas Injury Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses Medical Malpractice Fatalities in Dallas

In America, we have high expectations of our medical practitioners. In order to practice medicine in this country, medical professionals are expected to undergo a huge amount of schooling and preparation. Nurses must spend at least seven years in college and nursing school, and doctors require 10 years of schooling just to practice general medicine and as long as 15 years to specialize in a given field such as gynecology or plastic surgery.

After all of that schooling, the expectation is that a doctor or other medical professional will perform medical procedures and give medical consultations that are accurate and reliable. When the medical professionals fail in this regard and patients are hurt, they have a right to file medical malpractice lawsuits against the attending medical professional. When patients die due to the negligent care of a medical professional, then the patient’s family has the right to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the doctor or nurse who was responsible.

For the past 20 years, Michael Grossman and the associates at Grossman Law Offices have been dealing with medical malpractice litigation. After helping hundreds of other Texans, we know what your family is experiencing after losing a loved one. We know that you’re devastated emotionally and unsure of how to proceed. When a loved one is dying slowly from a terminal illness, the family has time to come to terms with the loss. On the other hand, when someone you love dies suddenly, the shock and loss can wreak havoc on the entire family. Thus, we want to provide you with some basic information about wrongful death litigation concerning medical malpractice, so that you can feel more at ease about the shocking situation in which you’ve found your family thrust. To discuss the specific details of your case, call Grossman Law Offices now for a free consultation at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free) because this informative article is no substitute for the informed advice of a medical malpractice wrongful death attorney.

While every state has different rules and regulations regarding whether someone can file a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit, the state of Texas allows for the claim when a medical professional has caused death either with his or her negligent actions or inaction. Sometimes, patients die during medical procedures due to the cruel reality of nature when nobody is to blame. Thus, the family of someone who dies while under the care of a medical professional must come to a determination over whether or not the death involved medical malpractice and then be able to gather evidence to prove the case. In regard to complex medical matters, only a medical malpractice attorney with significant experience is capable of understanding whether or not medical malpractice exists and then gathering the physical evidence to make a lawsuit winnable.

Successful medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuits must meet four essential conditions:

• The attending medical professional owed some form of medical duty to the patient.
• The attending medical professional did not perform this medical duty as expected.
• The neglect of this medical duty by the medical professional caused or contributed to the cause of the victim’s death.
• The defendant is solvent and can pay compensation to the family of the deceased.

Dealing with a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit is a highly technical and intricate process, leaving non-lawyers who try to tackle it confused, frustrated, and usually disappointed. However, with 20 years of experienced, the lawyers at Grossman Law Offices can give you an excellent chance of securing the compensation you deserve for the loved one you have lost.

Why Should I File a Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

So soon after you’ve lost someone you loved, it might seem tasteless to be thinking about money and filing a lawsuit. While securing fair compensation will help your family cope with the loss it has suffered, filing a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit provides two far more important services to the community around you. First off, this lawsuit is usually the only way to punish someone who has negligently caused the death of another. Only in cases where a doctor intentionally killed a patient, which are extraordinarily rare, will criminal charges be filed. A civil lawsuit is the only way to bring bad doctors and nurses to justice. Second, attacking the negligent medical professional’s wallet is the surest way to make him or her change the negligent ways. Furthermore, doctors who have repeated lawsuits filed against them can lose their licenses, protecting who knows how many others from their harmful practices.

Then again, you have your family to think about. If the deceased was the primary wage earner for your family, then you’re going to need to be compensated adequately. Otherwise, your family will not be able to function.

How Do I Know if I have Legitimate Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death Lawsuit, and How Long Do I Have to File it?

While we know that you will need time to get your affairs together after a loved one dies, we also know how critically important it is that you get the ball rolling on a medical malpractice lawsuit immediately. The sooner you hire an attorney, the sooner your representation can begin searching for evidence and investigating the death of your family member.

However, the statute of limitations – the period of time in which legal action can be taken – on a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit does afford the families of victims, known as the plaintiffs, plenty of time to take action. In this state, plaintiffs have a two-year statue of limitations to file a medical malpractice lawsuit involving a fatality.

As we will discuss in a moment, there are two types of damages that can be pursued in a wrongful death lawsuit: wrongful death damages, which may be sought by the spouse, children, parents and dependent siblings of the deceased, and survival damages which can only be sought by the closest living relative of the victim.

Whether or not the negligent party was charged with a criminal offense, the plaintiffs can pursue a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit. Moreover, it’s still possible to win a civil lawsuit against a medical professional who has already been acquitted of criminal charges. At Grossman Law Offices, our lawyers are devoted to helping your family obtain the fair restitution it deserves.

What Compensation Can be Sought After a Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death

In a wrongful death lawsuit, “damages” do not refer to the harm done, the wrongful death itself, but to the financial value of that harm in terms of compensation. As we’ve stated, plaintiffs can pursue wrongful death and survival damages. Wrongful death damages may include compensation for:

• Hospital bills incurred by the victim before death.
• Funeral expenses.
• Emotional and mental distress.
• Loss of familial love and consortium.
• Loss of financial support.

Survival damages, on the other hand, were created to give the closest living relative the power to seek the damages the victim could have pursued with a personal injury lawsuit had he or she survived the medical mishap instead of being killed. The spouse is the first relative to incur this right, followed by children, parents, and then siblings. This person can seek both wrongful death and survival damages.

Unfortunately for plaintiffs, the state of Texas places limits on how much compensation can be obtained in a medical malpractice claim. Recent tort reforms inspired by insurance lobbyists lowered the allowable minimum amount of medical malpractice insurance coverage, while at the same time increasing the standards of proof that must be met to prove a case. Sadly, the insurance industry was the only party that benefitted from this change. They save millions of dollars in potential medical malpractice lawsuits, but they have not passed on this savings to doctors, who are actually paying higher premiums than they were before the reforms.

How Does Comparative Negligence Affect a Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death?

Each defendant can only be held financially responsible according to the amount of his or her negligence for the victim’s death – what is known as comparative negligence. This principle often comes into play in medical malpractice lawsuit in which a medical professional did something that is deemed partially responsible for the fatality. Determining this degree of comparative negligence requires the expert touch of a medical malpractice attorney with extensive experience handling other cases.

Challenges to Successful Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Thanks to tort reforms, winning medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuits is far from easy, and shrewd insurance adjusters and experienced defense lawyers don’t make it any easier. The defense will have its own medical specialists who know how to manipulate the evidence, and you’re going to need an experienced attorney who is capable of producing his or her own medical experts to make color the evidence in a light that is favorable to you. The evidence of a medical malpractice lawsuit may involve video of the procedure and a mountain of medically technical paperwork. Someone with no legal or medical experience stands no chance at all of sorting through the evidence and determining the essential facts.

In no way, shape, or fashion should you attempt to handle your own case – not when you have the opportunity to take advantage of the two decades of experience compiled by our medical malpractice attorneys. Throughout the many cases we’ve dealt with and heard discussed around the courtroom, we’re not aware of anyone who has ever handled a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit in this state and received the fair amount they deserved. Not even law school prepares someone to handle a medical malpractice lawsuit – only experience is an adequate educator.

Not only will the attorneys at Grossman Law Offices make sure the doctor, nurse, or other medical professional who caused your loved one’s death is punished, but he or she will pay for what he or she has done literally and figuratively by compensating your family fairly. The only way to make some good come out of what happened to your loved one is to do you part to ensure the negligent medical professional stops his or her dangerous behavior.

After two decades handling medical malpractice wrongful death cases, we’ve won thousands of cases for our clients and know we can help you too. There is no obligation made when you call us for a free consultation at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free). You will just have the opportunity to tell us what happened to your loved one, ask any questions you may have, and learn how our firm can be of assistance. Put your loved one’s memory in the hands of a skilled professional and call now.