Establishing Liability in Medical Malpractice Cases

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One concept that is common to all personal injury cases, including medical malpractice cases, is the concept of liability. Liability refers to the responsibility of one party for the injuries caused by his or her reckless, careless, or deliberately wrongful action to another party. In order to recover compensation for the losses and expenses related to his or her client's injury, a personal injury lawyer must present a carefully prepared case in which a direct connection is clearly made between the defendant's actions (or inactions) and the injury. Only then will a defendant be found liable and, therefore, legally obligated to make the injured party "whole" again through financial compensation.

In most personal injury cases, an attorney must be able to identify and present compelling evidence of a specific act or acts of negligence on the part of the defendant in order to establish liability. Negligence is defined as the failure of a person to act with the care and diligence with which a reasonable person would be expected to act in a similar circumstance, resulting in an injury to an unwitting victim. For example, in cases involving medical malpractice, it must be shown that a physician, nurse, anesthesiologist, pharmacist, or other medical professional committed a flagrant error or otherwise fell below an acceptable standard of care, and that this failure directly contributed to the injury of a patient. Without this show of negligence, liability cannot be established, and the victim will be unable to recover compensation.

In some cases, specifically those involving defective products, the doctrine of strict liability comes into play. In such instances, it is not necessary to demonstrate a specific act of negligence because sufficient evidence of negligence is provided by the mere existence of the defect that caused the injury. As long as it can be shown that the defect exists, and that it caused an injury despite proper use of the product, any and all parties responsible for the defect - from the designers and manufacturers to the distributors and retailers - could be found liable and ordered to pay damages.