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3 Potential Defenses for a Medical Malpractice Case

May 03, 2021
Group of Doctors — Los Angeles, CA — Spiga and Associates

If you are a doctor, you know the importance of medical malpractice insurance. However, even with insurance to carry the cost, you don't want that terrible mark on your record if you didn't do anything wrong. If you would like to learn more about how to defend yourself, keep reading to learn about three defense strategies for medical malpractice cases.


Rejection of Expert Testimony

Unlike regular witnesses, an expert witness has certain knowledge, experience, and education that makes thema valuable resource to help the plaintiff or the defendant. However, one possible defense strategy for your medical malpractice case is to identify any unqualified experts and inadequate expert testimony. You and your attorney can do this in many ways.


First, you can have testimony thrown out based on Daubert factors. This means that the witness did not meet the criteria needed to establish certain admissibility criteria. Typically, the criteria ensure experts must have proven examples, tests, standards, and error rates before they use any stats or examples for their testimony.


Naturally, an expert can also be disqualified if they are not qualified. In addition, the expert must stick to the scope of their expertise. An expert at pharmaceuticals can talk about how a pharmaceutical has side effects that may affect mental health, but they can't then give expert testimony on mental health or the state of your mental health.


In some cases, the expert's testimony is not helpful in determining who is at fault. In the above example, if the pharmaceutical expert only talked about statistics on how many doctors prescribe the wrong medication, the courts will likely toss it out since it can't be used to determine your specific case.


Reduction of Damages

In a malpractice case, the plaintiff needs to prove they sustained damages due to the negligence. Damages usually refer to medical bills, lost income, lost future income, pain and suffering, or ongoing medical bills. However, if you can prove the plaintiff is lying, you may get a reduction or elimination of damages.


One of the best ways to prove the plaintiff is lying about their injuries is with social media. A good attorney will have private investigators look at all social media sites to look for evidence that can help. Perhaps the plaintiff complains they can't walk for long periods of time now, but the investigator finds photos of a recent hike they took up a mountain.


You may also be able to have damages reduced if you can prove the plaintiff didn't mitigate damages. If a patient was hurt by negligence but refused to seek treatment (or they didn't follow through with treatment prescribed by a doctor), your attorney can argue they weren't that injured if they didn't bother to continue treatment.


Absence of Causation

To be responsible for a patient's damages, you must have caused themwith your negligence. This can be easy to prove thanks to medical records, but you can just as easily disprove this with medical records. With the pharmaceutical example, imagine you prescribed the corrected medicine, but the pharmacist filled the wrong medicine. If you can prove this, you prove you didn't cause the damages.


In addition, even if you are at fault for some damages, the chain of causation may have been broken. This happens when an unforeseeable event occurs that worsens the injuries. Your lawyer can help you trace the defendant's injuries to the source.


Medical malpractice happens all the time, but if you did nothing wrong, you shouldn't be punished. Luckily, there are many defenses to medical malpractice lawsuits. If you would like to learn more about medical malpractice, or if you need to defend your license, contact us at Spiga & Associates today.


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