How Do You Measure The Worth Of Your Medical Malpractice Suit?
Like all other tort cases, it would be really hard to determine the actual dollar amount of your medical malpractice lawsuit. Getting your case to trial would involve lots of time, energy, stress and money - added to the already expensive and resource-draining injury that you went thru due to medical malpractice. Calculating the total amount of your claim is indeed complicated. There are a lot of factors that come to play when you are pursuing your claim, like the severity of the injury, the jurisdiction, state caps and pre-existing conditions.
Your settlement may depend on the severity of your injury. Generally, the more severe the injury, the higher the damages can be. But in recent times, there's a change in the climate of all personal injury claims, due to the rising number of cases of motor vehicle accidents, slip and fall and recreational activity-related injuries like sports and travel. And because of that, premiums for insurance policies are steadily rising to accommodate all of these claims.
The jurisdiction in which you received the injury can also play as a factor in determining the amount of your claim. There are certain rules and laws that govern medical malpractice, misconduct in profession and physician's liability in every state, and they all vary. A lawyer in your area that handles medical malpractice cases can explain to you if there are certain rules that would greatly affect the damages you may need to recover from your case.
Some claims can get so trivial that they border on being frivolous. To prevent frivolous claims from being credited by the jury, some states have placed caps on malpractice damages to act as deterrents. If in case a malpractice suit has been awarded, the payment will be done in installments thru health insurance, instead of receiving one-time "lump-sum" payments. Your lawyer will tell you if your state has placed caps on the damages you can actually claim for your malpractice suit.
Another factor that would come to play is if you already have a pre-existing condition before you had the injury from medical malpractice. Say you had an existing heart ailment; it will be hard to get a bigger claim for a case of malpractice resulting to the injury of the heart which is already having a problem since. When you state your problem, make sure that you state on your claim whatever pre-existing conditions you might already have. If you don't mention that you already have a pre-existing condition related to your case, your insurance company might discover it thru an investigation of your previous medical records, and may claim fraud on your part.
Having an expert medical malpractice attorney will explain to you in detail the circumstances surrounding your case and how you can do your part to get a higher settlement for your medical malpractice suit.
Our Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorneys are very competent in handling personal injury cases such as Medical Malpractice
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