Underground Journal

Dental and Medical Malpractice

On average there are about 80,000 reported cases of dental or medical malpractice every year. Interestingly enough, though, only about 10,000 victims seek compensation through a lawsuit. But why is that number so small? Experts attribute this to a lack of awareness about their legal rights among the victims. Further to that, not everybody likes the notion of going through litigation, understandably. But what constitutes medical or dental malpractice? According to the law, any negligent conduct or misconduct of a medical health care provider that can be directly linked to a person’s personal injury is considered malpractice. It is important to emphasize the term ‘negligent conduct’.

In other words, if a patient dies because of his personal injuries, but the doctors in charge did everything according to text book procedure there is no legal grounds for a medical malpractice claim. But if the personal injury – or the death of the victim – is proven to be a result of a medical professional’s misconduct, a compensation claim lawsuit can be filed. Remarkably, most of the dental malpractice or medical malpractice cases don’t need to go to court. In large part, a compensation settlement agreement can be reached before trial.

And even though in general the compensation amounts are typically lower in an out of court agreement, both parties benefit because it saves them a lot of time and money as opposed to a court procedure.
Dental and medical malpractice is a serious offense. If you received a personal injury that you think was induced by a health care professional’s negligence or misconduct, you should seek the legal advice of a specialized medical or dental malpractice lawyer. The vast majority of them offer free consultations and further to that they also often provide their services on a contingency basis. You should not wait too long, though, because under the statue of limitations you only have a certain amount of time to file your claim after the personal injury occurred.

(0) Comments Permalink