How to Pursue a Medical Malpractice Case in Indiana: The Basics

You live in Indiana and your son needs an emergency appendectomy. The doctor from the nearby hospital tells you the procedure is going to be smooth and quick. A week later, the doctor looks at the x-rays; it turns out the surgeon that conducted the appendectomy left a small razor inside the abdomen of your son. Now it is causing some infection.

Now the surgeon wants to take out the infected parts of your son’s body and which means he has to stay at home for a month for his body to recover. For this extra surgery, who will pay for it? What about your son missing school or even you from work since you have to attend to his needs? Can your son recover from the pain he has been forced to go through because of the incompetence of the surgeon? Here are some tips to help you. You may also want to seek an Indianapolis medical malpractice law firm to fully help you.

Check the time limits

First, when did your son have the operation? The personal injury lawsuit should be filed within two years during the incident.  Statute of limitations eliminates a plaintiff’s ability to recover compensation if too much time has already passed since the incident. This is to prevent patients with old injuries from suing hospitals or medical facilities long after a treatment or operation happened, when witnesses and even medical records may have already disappeared.

Who Are You Going to Sue?

You can start begin by suing the health care professional who caused the injury. But sometimes, lawyers will include many defendants from the hospital, or even the hospital itself, to possibly maximize the settlement you would get.

The medical facility can be liable under a doctrine called “respondeat superior”.  This means that an employer, in this case a hospital, should be held responsible for any action of its personnel or staff who is performing his or her duties being an employee. The hospital can also be sued using the doctrine of “corporate negligence”. For instance, if the facility fails to review employees for their proper credentials, or keep sanitary conditions, or if a patient gets discharged improperly.

You can also sue a pharmaceutical firm for a product liability lawsuit if it manufactured a medicine that has unreasonably adverse side effects of which you are not notified. This also applies to a firm that manufactured or designed a defective or poor medical device.
 
Preparing a Lawsuit

The personal injury lawsuit starts when you lodge a complaint before the local courthouse.
Your complaint should contain details about the incident that caused the injury, identities of the parties that are involved in the incident, and why compensation is needed.

It may also be a good idea to get an experienced lawyer who is an expert when it comes to personal injury cases.

Many medical malpractice lawyers can work with you on a contingency fee basis. This means the lawyer is only going to be paid a portion of the settlement that you receive. In short, the lawyer does not have to be paid until your case wins.

Medical Negligence Suit

In order for you to win in your lawsuit, you must be able to effectively show that the conduct of the health care professional did not meet the standards of medical care, and that this problem led to your injuries.

This means you should get an expert witness who can better articulate the standards when it comes to medical care and explain the shortcomings of the doctor or health care professional.

Estimating Your Damages

The crux of your lawsuit should focus on the financial losses or economic damages as a result of the injury. These include the costs as a result of what happened, medical bills, as well as the loss potential income because you are unable to go to work.

This is a guest blog entry.