A medical malpractice case always involves a significant upfront investigation. The first step is obtaining the important medical records, which we review internally. Every page needs to be reviewed for details which may prove important to your case.
In order to file a medical malpractice lawsuit in Ohio, you need to have the case reviewed by one or more qualified medical providers (i.e. “expert witnesses”). Those providers must provide sworn statements stating that your case has merit. Thus, once we have completed our internal review, we will determine whether or not there are sufficient grounds to warrant sending the medical records to one or more expert witnesses.
Only when the medical experts believe that your case has merit and submit a sworn statement saying so can your case can be filed in court.
It is important to realize that an error by a medical provider alone will not be sufficient to pursue a medical malpractice case. A provider’s error must have caused actual and substantial injury and damages in order for the case to be pursued. In recent years, Ohio lawmakers have passed laws, often referred to as “tort reform,” limiting the types and amounts of damages that can be obtained in medical malpractice cases. Because of tort reform, only a small subset of medical provider errors can be pursued through malpractice lawsuits.
How Do You Prove Medical Malpractice?
Hey folks, Allen tittle here, Cleveland’s medical malpractice lawyer. Another question that we get from time to time is “Allen, how do you prove a medical malpractice case?” “How do you win these things?” Well the answer is, we first have to get doctors to come in and testify on our own behalf. So, it could be one doctor, it could be a number of doctors.
The other thing that we look at is medical literature textbooks, guidelines, anything that we can get our hands on that is peer-reviewed by other doctors. We use that to try to formulate what is the standard of care that doctors must follow. In other words, what do doctors have to do in order to follow the rules that every single other doctor must follow. Once we have that established we’re able to determine whether or not the care in question followed those rules. And if not, we’re able to prove the malpractice through the literature and also through our own experts. I hope that answered the question of how do you prove in a medical malpractice case.