Birth Injury Compensation
If your child has a birth injury due to the negligence of a doctor or an unjust decision, it could be devastating. These injuries are often life-long treatment and treatment, which can result in immense financial burdens.
In addition, many birth injury cases involve an intricate debate over medical malpractice versus medical errors. Our lawyers can help discern the differences.
Costs of Treatment
Insurance companies, attorneys, and judges look at the severity of the birth injury and the impact it affects the child’s quality of life in determining the amount compensation to be awarded. For instance the child who suffers from a medical condition requires continuous medical treatment that will increase the value of a claim.
Medical treatment for birth injuries can be very expensive. Compensation for denver birth injury lawyer injuries could aid families in covering these costs. Lawyers often work with experts to put together a «Life Care Plan» that calculates the total costs of a child’s injury. These costs include hospitalization, surgery, specialized medical treatments such as prescriptions, home repairs and equipment, etc.
Your legal team will gather medical records from the pregnancy and birth of your child, in addition to personal accounts from relatives. These records will be used to prove that your child was injured due to medical malpractice and to prove the extent to which the injury occurred.
Many states have medical indemnity fund that provides financial aid to families with children born with birth injuries. These funds can either collect part of malpractice insurance premiums, or require hospitals and doctors to contribute to a resource pool. In addition to providing monetary assistance, these programs could also decrease the requirement for families to make a claim. However, JLARC staff found that the programs don’t always meet their aims and need to be improved.
Life Care Planning
Children who suffer from disorders like cerebral palsy and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy will have permanent medical requirements. These include physical therapies, specialized equipment, lawsuit and home health care. These expenses can be substantial.
A life-care plan is a document that establishes the future medical education, in-home, and other expenses that disabled children will have to pay throughout his or her life. These plans are typically used to help calculate the economic component of damages in a case involving a birth injury. They should be comprehensive and meticulously drafted to meet the strict evidentiary requirements for the admissibility of the plan in court.
Life-care planners can assist to draft these documents in accordance with information and formal opinions from the child’s doctors caregivers, therapists, and doctors. The plans contain a thorough description of the initial injury and the diagnosis. They also explain the root cause of the disability and its long-term consequences.
A medical malpractice lawyer should collaborate with a life-care planner to develop the most appropriate plan for their clients’ situation. The plan’s goal is to ensure your child receives adequate compensation to cover their future expenses and medical care. The funds are usually put into a trust for special requirements, which is managed by an approved administrator. The amount of money that is awarded is typically adjusted regularly to reflect changes in the future needs of your child.
Pain and Suffering
In a birth-related injury case damages are awarded to cover a plaintiff’s past and future pain and suffering. This includes physical and mental distress from the injury, and also an inability to participate in activities normally enjoyed by other people.
It is also possible to claim for the loss of income when a victim’s disability limits their career options or prohibits them from working at all. Families can also be compensated for the care and treatment of an injured child.
The verdicts in medical malpractice cases are typically extremely high, since juries are often sympathetic towards victims and hold doctors accountable for their mistakes. Many doctors and hospitals prefer to settle rather than risk an expensive trial and difficult for all parties involved.
During the lawsuit lawyers from both sides will collect evidence to support their arguments. They will exchange documents in a process called discovery, which involves deposing witnesses to obtain statements under oath. The defendants may also request to see the plaintiff’s medical records which is permitted in most states.
A successful birth injury claim requires a lawyer with experience in these types of cases. An experienced lawyer will evaluate your case to determine if you have a valid lawsuit and work to achieve the highest settlement.
Punitive Damages
Some medical malpractice suits contain punitive damages awards, which are meant as a stern warning to deter future negligence. These damages can be awarded when there is a high level of negligence or malice on the part the doctor. They are very rare in cases of birth injury.
After the attorney has identified appropriate defendants, they need to examine and gather evidence to support their claims. They must prove that the injuries caused by medical professionals were not up to a high standard of care. The legal team must be able to prove the loss that was caused with the injuries, which are referred to as «damages.» These damages can be either economic or non-economic.
Economic losses are calculated by the estimation of ongoing treatment costs, including long-term care facilities and other services. They can also include losses in earnings if the injury caused one or both parents to leave their jobs.
The legal team will then create a demand form that they can present to the malpractice lawyers. This document will detail the birth injuries and the impact they have on the child and the family, and request compensation for the losses. The lawyers will negotiate with the medical professionals until a settlement is reached. During this process, attorneys will discuss their cases with the opposing side through discovery, which includes taking depositions from witnesses who swear to their testimony under an oath.