Damges In Medical Malpractice Cases

Imagine a gentleman just being diagnosed with having a hernia. His doctor recommends surgery, informs on the pros, cons, and alternatives, and the gentleman consents to surgery. After surgery, the man suffers in pain for several weeks; recovery time was only supposed to be a few days.

He goes to a hospital and receives an X-ray. The results of which show that the mesh used to bond the hole in his abdomen was not proper to use, there is a gauze pad left inside his body, and a serious infection is brewing around the surgical site below the skin’s surface.

The man misses time from work, unpaid because he is a waiter that does not receive paid time off. He also has to undergo another surgery to fix the mistakes that were made during his last surgery. The man also has to purchase various pharmaceuticals to cure the infection.

The pain and suffering he endured, the medical bills, wages lost from missing work, pharmaceutical costs, and everything else endured by having negligent surgery and having to undergo a second surgery are called, “damages”.

The experienced Kingston medical malpractice attorney knows that all of these losses can be recovered by suing the offending medical professional.

Pain and suffering, as well as other general damages, can be calculated by astute medical malpractice attorneys and the experts that which aid the victim’s case during litigation. Special damages, such as medical bills and lost wages are easily quantifiable because invoices and wage statements can be tabulated. Future medical bills are special damages that can be claimed too, but these are much harder to calculate. Again, experts can be called upon to resolve the issue.

For the most part, special damages and general damages are all that a medical malpractice victim can claim against the offending doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist, hospital, etcetera, etcetera. But there is another type of damages, although rarely seen, can be claimed against the perpetrator(s) of medical malpractice.

Punitive damages is the third category. If a medical professional acts with intent to cause harm, or with reckless disregard for a patient’s well being, punitive damages may be in order. Punitive damages will serve to punish the wrongdoer for committing such egregious actions and work to prevent future such occurrences.

Special, general, and punitive damages can compensate the victim for the harms caused to him/her. In New York, the amount received can be limitless, a point very important to understand.

But what do you think? I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com. You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.