In order to win your medical malpractice case, why do you need to show that there is a connection between a violation of basic standards of medical care and your injuries?
In order to win your medical malpractice case, why do you need to show that there is a connection between a violation of basic standards of medical care and your injuries?
There should be a Causal Link
In a medical malpractice case not only do we have to show that there is wrongdoing or carelessness, and the doctor violated basic standards of medical care, we have to go one more step further. We have to show that because of that wrongdoing or carelessness, you have suffered significant injury or harm and losses, which is known as causation.
There has to be a causal connection between the wrongdoing and the injuries you have suffered. If there was, wrongdoing and you have suffered injuries that are unrelated to that wrongdoing, then, you do not have a medical malpractice case. We must not only show wrongdoing but also it must be connected to the injuries, and these injuries have to be significant or permanent.
If there is a break in the continuity between the wrongdoing and your injuries then there is no way you are going to be successful in your medical malpractice case in the state of New York. A link between the violations of basic standards of decent medical care and the harm and losses that you have suffered is paramount.
Three Important Elements
Once you are able to show that there was wrongdoing and that wrongdoing caused you injuries that are significant, only then you have all three elements to go ahead and put your case in front of a jury or a courtroom. After the trial, the jury will decide whether we have shown that we are more likely right than wrong, and that we are entitled to a verdict in our favor. However, there should always be that middle component that bridges the gap from wrongdoing to the injuries.
Many people walk into a lawyer’s office when they are injured after treatment, and they feel something might have gone wrong since they have been injured. However, when the attorney specifically asks them, whether the wrongdoing was the cause of their injuries they are unable to tell for sure. Your lawyer will however need that causal connection, that bridge between the wrongdoing and your injuries to convince the jury about your claim.
If you cannot provide that link the attorney will decline to accept your case or even make it a case.
What are the other possibilities?
It is possible your injuries will not be related to the wrongdoing, which means they are independent. Alternatively, your injuries could coincide and related to some form of carelessness stemming from the doctor, and some injuries may not be. In order to determine fully whether there is that connection, your lawyer will have to conduct a thorough investigation.
The defense will also try to exploit the other possibilities as a defense strategy, and therefore it is crucial to show this causal link to the jury. The defense might say we could have suffered these injuries in spite of the wrongdoing or such injuries cannot be the result of the wrongdoing because of x,y, and z.
X,y, and z could be that your injuries from something that happened months or years prior have not fully healed yet. This could be a past sporting accident such as falling off an ATV, a high school football injury that you sustained, you hurt something while carrying a 50 pound bag of cement a year ago and that injury still has not healed properly, for example.
