Santa Ana Medical Malpractice Lawyer
We focus 100% of our time representing injured Santa Ana residents.
Legal Representation for Victims of Medical Malpractice
Patients entrust their health, overall wellbeing, and – in some cases – their lives to doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and other healthcare providers. Unfortunately, because all health care providers are human, they make mistakes from time to time. Sometimes, these mistakes are innocuous and don’t cause any harm. Other times, these mistakes can cause patients a great deal of harm. With that said, not all medical mistakes are immediately identified. Additionally, not all mistakes are owned up to by those who have made missteps once these mistakes have been identified. As a result of these twin challenges, patients are often left in a position wherein they’re wondering whether the medical complications that they’re experiencing resulted from a legally actionable mistake or not.
The area of civil law that governs medical malpractice is notoriously complex. No two medical mistake cases ever unfold in exactly the same ways. As a result, it is critically important to seek legal guidance in a free consultation setting even if you are unsure of whether a medical mistake indeed caused your harm. If you believe that a mistake may have happened, it is entirely possible that you are correct. It may take some investigative work to uncover exactly what happened, but in the end, our team will do our utmost to uncover the truth. Whether an unidentified mistake caused your harm, a mistake was made but wasn’t revealed to you, or your medical challenges did not ultimately arise as a result of legally actionable malpractice, our team will do our best to ensure that you have all the information you’ll need to make informed choices about your legal options.
Compassionate Representation for Victims of Medical Negligence
As you may have recently experienced a violation of your trust by a medical professional, you may be understandably hesitant to place your trust in a legal professional. Know that our firm has developed a reputation for trustworthy, client-focused, knowledgeable, and compassionate representation of personal injury victims in Orange County and throughout Southern California. We never treat any prospective client or client as “just another case.” We understand that the harm you have experienced has caused you real suffering and that your suffering deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. Please allow us to explain our approach to representation and answer any questions you may have about your legal situation in a confidential, free consultation with no strings attached. If you may have been harmed by a medical professional, you deserve to understand your rights under the law. It would be our honor to clarify those rights for you and to advise you of your legal options through personalized guidance and knowledgeable feedback.
Is Filing Legal Action Worth My Time?
Our legal team and support staff have great respect for medical professionals. Seeking justice and any compensation to which you may be entitled to in the wake of a medical mistake isn’t an act of demonizing medical personnel. The twin aims of pursuing medical malpractice lawsuits are to ensure that injury victims aren’t unjustly burdened with the financial costs of another’s mistakes and to better ensure that no one else experiences the same kind of harm that the injury victim has been subjected to.
Too often, patients fail to seek legal guidance after suffering medically-related harm because they don’t want to “punish” their medical providers for human error. Seeking compensation in a civil context isn’t about punishment. It is about ensuring that you receive financial justice related to the harm you’ve suffered so that your medical bills, lost wages, and other financial losses are covered by those responsible for causing you harm in the first place. Failure to explore your legal options now may lead to significant financial headaches down the road that could impact your entire family’s wellbeing.
How Do I Know if I Have Grounds to File Legal Action?
Medical negligence cases tend to be complex, partially because there are often multiple factors present that lead to the occurrence of a mistake. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have protocols in place to prevent missteps. As a result, when mistakes occur, it can take time to determine what happened to cause a patient’s harm. As previously noted, the healthcare provider at fault for the mistake may not be aware that it occurred or may be aware of its occurrence and have failed to disclose it to you. Either way, it is important for you to understand that if you have suspicions that the harm you’re suffering was caused by a medical mistake or medical negligence, you should speak with an attorney. Exploring your legal options in a free consultation setting will cost you nothing but time. However, once we determine whether you have grounds to file a legal case, you may benefit from that knowledge practically, financially, and mentally.
What Is a Healthcare Provider’s “Duty of Care”?
When seeking to successfully prove that medical negligence has caused a patient’s harm, our legal team will need to establish that the provider responsible for that harm owed the patient a “duty of care” under the law and directly caused them harm by breaching that duty. One of the many reasons why medical negligence cases tend to be complex is that “duty of care” in healthcare contexts are defined by the standards of treatment established by the profession itself. In a car accident case, it’s usually very easy to prove that one motorist owed another motorist a duty of care under the law because every time someone chooses to operate a vehicle, they are legally bound to do so safely. Any negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous behavior on the part of a motorist – from running a stop sign to texting while driving – serves as a breach of that duty of care owed to other travelers. However, the medical profession itself establishes what a healthcare provider’s duty of care looks like in individual scenarios. This is a far more complex reality to parse than it is in car accident cases.
When a California jury is presented with instructions so that they may render a verdict in a medical negligence case, they are told that “[A/An] [insert type of medical practitioner] is negligent if (they) fail to use the level of skill, knowledge, and care in diagnosis and treatment that other reasonably careful [insert type of medical practitioners] would use in the same or similar circumstances. This level of skill, knowledge, and care is sometimes referred to as “the standard of care.” This specialty-specific direction indicates that, for example, the standard of care expected of a pediatric surgeon operating on a two-month-old is different than the standard of care expected of a cardiac surgeon attending to an 80-year-old patient who may be having a heart attack. The standard of care that should have been exercised in your case will be illustrated using expert testimony.
Note that harm caused by a medical mistake is not necessarily the same as harm caused by an unsuccessful outcome. Patients are not owed successful outcomes, only that their providers will treat them with the same “level of skill, knowledge, and care in diagnosis and treatment that other reasonably careful (providers) would use in the same or similar circumstances. It is the combination of negligent treatment AND harm caused by that negligence that supports the foundation of a successful medical negligence case.
Common Reasons Why Medical Malpractice Cases Are Filed
Not all mistakes serve as grounds for legal action. However, when the “deviation from standard of care” threshold is met and significant patient harm results from that standard of care deviation, successful personal injury cases may be filed by a patient who has been harmed. Some of the most common reasons why injured patients choose to file medical negligence claims include:
- Diagnosis delays and outright failure to diagnose conditions
- Ordering unnecessary tests, treatments, labs, procedures, or surgery
- Failure to ensure that the patient has adequate follow-up care instructions
- Treatment that is either inadequate or incompetent
- Unreasonable disregard or misinterpretation of testing or lab results
- Inadequate consideration of the patient’s medical history
- Failure to identify the patient as symptomatic
- Failure to secure the patient’s informed consent
- Premature or otherwise unjustified discharge of a patient from a healthcare facility
- Failure to identify and prevent known drug interactions
- Pharmaceutical mistakes, including dosing, administration, or prescription order errors
- Failure to order labs, treatments, or tests necessary for patient care
- Surgical errors
Communicating with Insurers and Hospital Administrators
It is generally a good idea to avoid speaking with insurance representatives and hospital administrators until you have attended your free consultation and received personalized legal guidance. Depending on the circumstances surrounding your injuries, you may be offered an insurance payout or even a settlement so that those responsible for causing your harm can avoid litigation. Accepting the terms of the settlement or an insurance award can be tempting, especially if you are strapped for cash, strapped for time, and/or are not interested in adding any stress to your life. As a result, it may be a good idea for you personally to accept the terms of compensation offered to you. However, you will not be able to make an informed decision about that offering until an experienced attorney has reviewed the terms of the compensation-related contract in question. You may or may not be owed a great deal more that is being “put on the table.”
Our team has extensive experience negotiating successfully with insurance providers, opposing counsel, and hospital administrators on behalf of our clients. We know what to look for and which questions to ask when determining whether an offer of compensation is fair or unfair. Please do not sign anything and ideally refrain from communicating further with anyone else involved in your legal situation until we have had the opportunity to assess your case.
Contact Our Firm Today for a Free Case Evaluation
The stress, confusion, frustration, and maybe even anger or fear that you’re feeling right now may make it difficult to even think about exploring your legal options. This is understandable, as suffering a breach of trust with a medical professional is no small occurrence. You may be hesitant to place your trust in a legal professional right now for very good reasons. However, failing to explore your legal options in a risk-free, no-cost, confidential setting may place you in a position to suffer financially as a result of another’s mistakes. Additionally, failing to clarify your situation may leave you wondering “What really happened?” for years to come.
Please consider allowing our experienced legal team to learn more about your circumstances and advise you of your legal options accordingly. That way, you’ll be empowered to make informed decisions that may lead to greater peace of mind, financial stability, and a greater understanding of how to approach recovery from the harm you have been subjected to. We look forward to meeting with you.