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If you suffered an injury due to a surgical mistake, you may qualify for financial compensation via a medical malpractice lawsuit. To win your case, you must prove that a healthcare provider acted negligently. A New York medical malpractice lawyer can fight back against common defenses doctors use in surgical error cases and seek the money you deserve.
How to Prove a Surgical Error Resulted from Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice injuries do not result from unavoidable bad outcomes, which can sometimes occur in medicine, even when doctors do everything right. Medical malpractice results from negligent medical treatment, which involves the following four elements:
- Duty of Care – The duty of care is a doctor’s obligation to treat you according to accepted professional medical standards. This duty exists if there is a doctor-patient relationship.
- Breach of Duty – A doctor breaches the duty of care if the treatment they provide is not what most other healthcare professionals would deem acceptable or necessary. A breach can also be a failure to treat when required.
- Causation – Causation proves that the doctor’s error caused your injury.
- Damages – Damages establish that the injury led to losses, and you have a right to seek financial compensation.
Common Defenses Against Surgical Malpractice
There are many defenses a surgeon may employ to fight allegations of medical malpractice. Common defenses in surgical error cases may include:
- No Duty of Care – A doctor may argue that they did not owe you a duty of care because no doctor-patient relationship existed. However, this type of defense is unlikely in a surgical error case because if a doctor operated on you, they clearly agreed to treat you.
- Standard of Care – This defense claims that the surgeon treated you according to the accepted medical standards, and another surgeon in their position would have offered the same care.
- Lack of Causation – This defense alleges that there is insufficient proof that the surgeon’s actions caused your injury.
- Comparative Negligence – Contributory negligence defenses aim to place blame on you for your injury. Under New York law, if the court agrees that you are partly at fault, any compensation you are awarded will be reduced by the percentage of fault assigned. So, if you have $100,000 in losses but are 20 percent liable, you would receive $80,000.
- Assumption of Risk – A surgeon may argue that you knew the risks associated with the surgery and voluntarily accepted them.
- Good Samaritan Laws – Good Samaritan laws prevent individuals from taking civil action against healthcare professionals who provide treatment during an emergency, such as a fire, building collapse, or natural disaster.
- Statute of Limitations – If you bring a claim outside the time allotted by the statute of limitations, the surgeon may request that the court dismiss the case, and the court will likely comply. New York law allows two years and six months to file most medical malpractice lawsuits, but the facts of the case could extend this deadline. Our firm can help you get started before it is too late.
How a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Can Fight Back
The best way to combat medical malpractice defenses is with a solid case of your own, built on evidence. Our medical malpractice lawyers can do the following to gather proof and support your claim:
- Obtain and review your medical records
- Obtain and review scientific and medical research
- Locate and interview eyewitnesses who can testify about the medical treatment you received
- Hire and consult with medical experts who can testify on your behalf
- Establish a timeline that proves your injury resulted from a surgical error
We can assist with all types of surgical error lawsuits, including those involving botched surgeries, wrong-site surgeries, wrong patient surgeries, infections, and sepsis.
Contact Dental & Podiatry Malpractice Lawyers of New York for Help Today
Surgical error cases are complex, but you do not have to fight alone. The medical malpractice lawyers at Dental & Podiatry Malpractice Lawyers of New York have decades of legal experience. We can put our skills and resources behind proving that medical negligence caused your injury. To learn more, contact us online or call today for a consultation.