Recovering Damages After a Medical Malpractice Incident

If you suffered additional pain and suffering due to negligence after being treated by a medical professional, you could recover damages in the form of economic damages and non-economic damages. A medical professional might be negligent for many reasons, including but not limited to the following:

• Fatigue

• Drinking or taking drugs while on the job or just before the medical professional’s shift

• No supervision for inexperienced medical professionals

• Ignoring a patient’s complaints

• Ignoring a patient’s medical history.

If you can show the medical professional’s actions and/or inactions were negligent, you could recover compensation. While the money doesn’t remove the pain or bring a loved one back, the money significantly reduces the financial stress of being out of work.

How to Prove Negligence

To prove negligence, you must meet four elements. An experienced Topeka medical malpractice lawyer will review your case to determine if a medical professional’s negligence caused your extra injuries, pain, and suffering.

Doctors and other medical professionals are held to a higher duty of care because of their experience and extensive schooling. The elements of negligence include:

• Medical professionals have a duty of care to keep their patients from harm.

• The medical professional breached the duty of care.

• You suffered damages because of the medical professional’s breach.

• The damages caused you to suffer financially.

Most people recover compensation in the form of economic damages. Some others might recover non-economic damages. However, most that recover non-economic damages must have lost a loved one or suffered catastrophic injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries, and cannot work for the rest of their lives. Once your attorney determines that a medical professional was negligent, she can work on determining what constitutes a fair and reasonable settlement. In such cases, consulting a traumatic brain injury attorney in Topeka is crucial for navigating the complexities of these claims.

Economic Damages

Sometimes referred to as special damages, economic damages have a monetary value. Most victims of medical malpractice can recover economic damages, including:

• Medical expenses, including doctors’ appointments, surgeries, follow-up appointments, prescriptions and prescribed over-the-counter drugs, medical equipment, and ambulatory aids.

• Therapeutic expenses, including physical therapy, psychological therapy, occupational therapy, and cognitive therapy.

• Accessibility items, including hand controls and wheelchair ramps or lifts for vehicles, wheelchair ramps, widened doorways, grab bars, handrails, and other accessibility items for the house.

• Lost wages and loss of future earning capacity. Even if you are able to return to work part-time or full-time, but at a lower-paying occupation or job, you could recover loss of partial future earning capacity.

• Death-related expenses, including funeral and burial expenses, cremation expenses, and probate attorney’s fees and costs. If you handle the probate case without an attorney, which is not advisable, you could recover attorneys’ fees and cast.

Non-Economic Damages

Sometimes referred to as general damages, non-economic damages do not have a monetary value. Not all medical malpractice victims can recover non-economic damages. In most cases, only those whose injuries caused long-term or permanent disabilities and those who lost a loved one due to a medical malpractice case recover non-economic damages, including:

• Pain and suffering, including emotional distress

• Loss of quality of life if you have to make lifelong changes such as taking prescriptions or using ambulatory aids

• Loss of companionship and/or consortium

• Inconvenience if you have to hire someone to do the chores you usually do, including but not limited to house cleaning, grocery shopping, home repair and maintenance, and lawn maintenance

• Excessive scarring and/or disfigurement

• Amputation of a digit or limb (the wrong one or needless amputation)

• Loss of use of a body part or bodily function.

Punitive Damages

Kansas allows punitive damages if you can prove that the medical professional’s actions or inactions were grossly negligent or intentional. You can only recover punitive damages if the court awards compensatory damages. Additionally, the court does not order punitive damages to make you financially whole. Instead, it orders the defendant to pay them as a punishment for the defendant’s behavior in the hopes that the gross negligence will not be repeated.

Contact Palmer Law Group, LLP

Medical malpractice is a complex area of law, one that requires an experienced group of attorneys to litigate successfully. If you are looking for Topeka’s most trustworthy medical malpractice law firm, consider Palmer Law Group, LLP.

Contact a Topeka medical malpractice attorney at Palmer Law Group LLP to learn more about how our team of award-winning lawyers can benefit you and your medical malpractice claims.