When you have suffered emotional distress due to your healthcare provider’s mistake or medical error, you may have grounds for a medical malpractice claim. This means you may also have the opportunity to sue the hospital where your life was significantly affected by your caregiver’s medical negligence.
By filing an insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit, you can legally hold negligent hospitals and healthcare providers accountable for their mistakes. You could be entitled to damages such as your medical costs and emotional distress that resulted from the medical error.
In This Article
- The Impact Of Emotional Distress
- Who Has Grounds For a Medical Malpractice Claim?
- Proving Liability in Medical Malpractice Claims
- The Value of Your Claim
- Reach Out To a Medical Malpractice Attorney for Help Today
The Impact Of Emotional Distress
When a person has been a victim of medical malpractice, their entire life can be turned upside down.
The emotional trauma you endured learning that your healthcare provider made a severe medical mistake could be enough to send you into a deep depression, experience severe anxiety, and make it difficult for you to live your life normally.
When your life has been affected by the emotional trauma of what you have been through, you may have grounds for legal action against your healthcare provider and those responsible for the medical mistake.
Your attorney will need to discuss what you went through and how your life has been affected by the emotional trauma you experienced to determine whether you have grounds for a medical malpractice claim and how much your case is worth.
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Who Has Grounds For a Medical Malpractice Claim?
Hospitals may be held accountable for medical malpractice when they hire physicians and other healthcare providers to provide medical care to patients. However, if a hospital hired a caregiver as an independent contractor, the hospital may not be liable for the actions of the healthcare provider who caused your injuries and other losses.
In order to move forward with a medical malpractice claim for emotional distress, your attorney will need to prove that the doctor, nurse, or medical facility breached their duty of care.
If a doctor or nurse made a mistake or error that another healthcare provider of similar job training, education, and experience would not have made, this could be considered a breach in the duty of care. Your attorney will need to prove the elements of negligence are met as follows:
- Duty of care
- Breach of duty
- Causation
- Damages
Your medical malpractice lawyer will need to show that the healthcare provider, hospital, or other liable party owed you a duty of care. Their breach in the duty of care must have caused you damages which had a substantial impact on your life.
This does not mean you must have suffered critical or life-threatening injuries. Rather, as long as the healthcare provider or facilities mistake caused considerable trauma in your life, you may have grounds for a medical malpractice insurance or civil claim.
Proving Liability in Medical Malpractice Claims
In medical malpractice and personal injury claims, liability must be proven based on a preponderance of the evidence. This is different from criminal court, where guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
More specifically, the “preponderance” standard that must be met requires that your attorney introduce evidence showing it is more likely than not that the defendant caused the physical injuries and emotional distress that have impacted your life.
Some of the more common types of evidence that could be used to prove liability in a medical malpractice claim for emotional distress include:
- Medical records
- Witness statements
- Expert testimony
- Forensic evidence
- Communication exchanges
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The Value of Your Claim
Emotional distress can have a devastating impact on your life. You may find it difficult to continue supporting yourself and your family while you struggle to cope with what you have been through.
Fortunately, you have the opportunity to be made whole after a healthcare provider’s negligence or misconduct causes you to suffer emotional injuries. Your attorney will need to closely evaluate the ways in which your life has been affected by your emotional distress to calculate the value of your claim.
You have the right to recover both economic and non-economic damages. Some of the more frequently awarded losses you could recover include:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Emotional trauma
- Costs of mental health counseling
- Other medical expenses
- Loss of income
- Diminished earning capacity
- Diminished quality of life
- Loss of consortium
You can get a better idea of how much your claim for emotional distress is worth when you contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney to discuss the circumstances of your case.
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Reach Out To a Medical Malpractice Attorney for Help Today
If you have suffered psychological distress or emotional trauma as a result of your healthcare provider’s negligence, you may also have grounds for a claim against the hospital.
Find out more about what legal options may be available to you when you contact a medical malpractice lawyer at Friedman & Simon, L.L.P. Claim your no-cost, risk-free consultation as soon as today. Our dedicated team member is standing by to discuss the details of your case.
Call or text 516-932-0400 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form