Los Angeles Medical Malpractice Attorney
If you or a loved one has suffered an injury due to medical negligence, it’s essential to contact a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible. If you believe you have a legal claim, there is evidence that needs to be recovered and timelines that need to be met in order to file a lawsuit successfully. The medical and legal community knows Dr. Bruce Fagel as a fierce adversary who is never afraid to go to trial. If you or a loved one has been the victim of a catastrophic, life-changing injury resulting from medical malpractice, please call a Los Angeles medical malpractice lawyer at our office today at 800-541-9376 for a free consultation.
Medical Malpractice Resources:
- Why Choose Dr. Bruce Fagel?
- How do I know if I have a Medical Malpractice case?
- Proving Medical Malpractice in Los Angeles, California
- How to Prove Medical Negligence
What Makes Dr. Fagel The Right Choice?
Dr. Bruce Fagel has been practicing law for more than two decades. Prior to graduating from law school, he worked as a doctor in emergency medicine for more than ten years. Dr. Fagel finished his medical studies at the University Of Illinois Medical College Of Medicine in 1972. He earned his law degree at Whittier College School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, in 1982. He was nominated eight times by the Consumer Attorneys Association for their prestigious Trial Lawyer of the Year award. He has resolved more than 700 medical malpractice and negligence cases, and he and his firm have recovered more than 1 billion dollars in verdicts and settlements.
How do I know if I have a Medical Malpractice case?
In California, medical malpractice occurs when you suffer an injury because a doctor, nurse, hospital, or other medical professional was negligent. This can include a negligent act or a negligent omission to act. In this type of case, you and your lawyer will have to prove to the court that the medical professional acted negligently, which means they deviated from the standards of care that are recognized and accepted as reasonable by health care professionals performing under the same or similar circumstances.
If you believe that you or a loved one is a victim of medical malpractice, it’s a good idea to get an opinion from a different, completely objective doctor. You need to ascertain that something outside of normally accepted medical practices occurred. Any information you get should be in writing if possible so you can provide this information to your medical malpractice lawyer. It’s unlikely that the negligent doctor or medical professional will admit their negligence, so the second opinion can be critical.
How to Prove Medical Malpractice in Los Angeles
If you want your medical malpractice claim to be successful, you will have to prove more than just the fact that your doctor or other healthcare professional was negligent. In addition to negligence, your attorney will need to show that your doctor owed you a duty of care, and that the duty of care was breached by their negligent act or failure to act. You’ll also need to prove that their negligence actually caused an injury, and the services you received were within the scope of services for which the provider is licensed. Additionally, there cannot be any restriction on those services imposed by the licensing agency or licensed hospital.
In order to show that your doctor owed you a duty of care, it will be necessary to prove that a doctor-patient relationship existed. If you are unable to establish the existence of a doctor-patient relationship, it’s likely that you won’t be able to successfully prove medical malpractice in the state of California.
This means that you have to actually have hired the doctor, and the doctor agreed to be hired! You can’t just get advice from a stranger at a party who happens to be a doctor and then sue them for medical malpractice. If a doctor gives you a misdiagnosis for your condition, that is also considered malpractice. Similarly, an experienced birth injury attorney in Los Angeles will be necessary if your child was injured due to negligence in the delivery room.
It’s also important to note that just because you’re unhappy with how something turned out, the situation doesn’t automatically meet the definition of negligence. If you believe you have a claim but you’re unsure of the existence of a doctor-patient relationship, or you aren’t sure if what happened was actually negligence, it’s best to contact an experienced Los Angeles medical malpractice attorney immediately.
How Do You Prove Medical Negligence?
In some circumstances, California relies on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in medical malpractice cases. This means “the thing speaks for itself.” This doctrine allows a claimant to prove negligence through circumstantial evidence. It presumes that a doctor behaved negligently when the instruments were exclusively within the defendant’s control, and the injury is one that usually does not occur without there being negligence. More simply put, this doctrine allows a judge or jury to determine the existence of negligence from the mere fact that an accident occurred when there is no other reasonable explanation.
To establish negligence through this doctrine, your attorney must prove the following things:
- The accident or injury would not ordinarily have occurred without negligence,
- The situation or incident that caused the injury was under the defendant’s exclusive control, and
- The harm was not due to anything the plaintiff did.
When this doctrine is invoked, the defendant and their attorney are then required to prove that negligence did not exist; it shifts the burden to the defense. If they are not able to prove that the defendant did not act negligently, the claimant should win the medical malpractice case.
Call a Los Angeles Medical Malpractice Attorney
If you’re looking for an experienced, compassionate, and dedicated medical malpractice attorney, Dr. Fagel is the right choice. He helps victims in California and Nevada and represents clients throughout the United States through representation with their local counsel. If you’re looking for a medical malpractice lawyer who understands both the law and the medical field, look no further.
All cases are taken on a contingency fee basis so there is no cost to you until he succeeds. Call a Los Angeles medical malpractice attorney from our office today at 800-541-9376 for a free consultation. Se habla español.
If you still aren’t sure Dr. Fagel is the right choice for you, don’t take our word for it. Take Superior Court Judge Gregory Lewis’s word for it: “Dr. Fagel is one of the most delightful medically intelligent attorneys that I have ever had the pleasure of appearing before me to present a case. He showed more knowledge about medical issues than many of the experts presented by the defense in the case.”