Residents of Warren and surrounding Macomb County, Michigan, can trust Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys to stand up for them against negligent hospitals and medical providers. If your doctor, dentist, or other medical provider has injured you, we can tell you how to take your next steps.
Following a medical error, insurers and attorneys representing the provider might contact you to talk about settling your claim. Don’t be fooled: these companies don’t have your best interests in mind. Contact the medical malpractice lawyers at Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys and let our skilled legal professionals do the talking.
Characteristics of Medical Malpractice
Like most people, you expect the medical professionals you see for treatment to perform their jobs competently and skillfully. While many do, medical mistakes are unfortunately all too common. For example:
- Your doctor might misread an X-ray or image and fail to detect cancer
- Your pharmacist might mix up two drugs with similar names and give you the wrong prescription
- Your dentist might be distracted and injure you by accident
- Your surgeon might remove the wrong organ or replace the wrong knee
- Your nurse might miss a dangerous drop in your vital signs during a hospital stay
- Your delivery team might ignore signs of fetal distress while delivering your child
Such mistakes may not be intentional. Even so, they can seriously harm you or your loved ones. What’s worse, many of these sorts of incidents are avoidable if only the provider acts with the appropriate awareness and caution.
The Standard of Care
Every doctor, dentist, pharmacist, and other healthcare provider must treat every patient according to an established standard of care.
This standard reflects the quality of treatment and attention a reasonable patient in your position can expect from a provider. Any professional who fails to meet it can be sued for malpractice by the patients they injure.
For example, imagine that a patient is scheduled to undergo a right knee replacement. Their surgeon fails to review their treatment plan before entering the operating room and proceeds to operate on the patient’s left knee. Any patient could reasonably expect their surgeon to double-check the procedure they were about to perform.
In this example, the surgeon failed to uphold the standard of care, and the patient suffered harm because they went through an unnecessary surgery and the associated pain and recovery period. To complicate matters further, their right knee still needs to be replaced, and it may continue to cause them pain and discomfort until that happens.
Do You Have a Valid Claim for Malpractice?
Because the standard of care and the question of whether a certain medical professional met that standard is central to malpractice claims, many people are uncertain whether they have a valid case. Your malpractice lawyer can answer that question during your initial consultation.
Our team will listen to the details of your experience, gathering the information we need to analyze your situation properly. We’ll review your medical records, consult authoritative sources that explain the applicable standard of care, and speak with experts in the field for clarification.
Based on our exhaustive review, we’ll advise you of your rights and whether you should move forward with a malpractice case. If we decide that your case would be difficult to win, we’ll tell you frankly and honestly and explain our reasons for our conclusion.
If you do choose to move forward anyway, you can trust our experienced attorneys to provide robust and effective representation at every stage of the legal process. We won’t stop fighting for you until you receive the compensation you deserve.
Damages Available to Medical Malpractice Victims in Warren
Medical mistakes can have devastating consequences. At best, you might need additional rounds of treatment or face a longer recovery time. At worst, your chance of surviving your condition may be diminished, and your quality of life could be negatively affected.
To address these injuries, your malpractice attorney will seek economic and non-economic damages on your behalf. Economic damages are meant to compensate you for expenses like corrective treatments, additional hospital stays, lost wages, and lost earning potential.
Non-economic damages, meanwhile, are designed to address the mental and emotional toll your injuries have taken. If the medical error resulted in paralysis or other permanent disabilities, you could receive up to $1,016,000 in non-economic damages. In all other medical malpractice cases, your non-economic damages are limited to $569,000.
Your and your family’s ability to move forward following an incident of malpractice depends on receiving adequate compensation to address your various losses. An experienced malpractice lawyer from Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys can accurately assess the effects of your injury, financial and otherwise.
You might also be entitled to damages if you’ve lost a loved one as a result of a medical mistake. These damages might reflect the loss of the decedent’s financial support, your mental trauma and grief, and other hardships brought about by the tragic loss.
We’re dedicated to helping our clients get the maximum legal recovery possible for their injuries. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you’ve been injured due to a medical error in Warren.
Where Are Medical Malpractice Cases Filed?
The facts of malpractice cases can be complicated, which can make it difficult to understand the proper procedures to follow. Having a skilled attorney by your side throughout your case means you don’t have to worry about making an error that might jeopardize your case.
The Michigan circuit courts are courts of general jurisdiction. They can hear and decide civil cases where $25,000 or more in damages are being sought.
This means that individuals affected by malpractice in Warren would file their cases with the Macomb County 16th Judicial Circuit Court. You would only file a case in Warren County’s 37th District Court if the damages you sought were less than $25,000.
When you work with Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys, our proven medical malpractice attorneys will evaluate your case and file your claim in the correct court to begin the process of securing fair compensation.
The Statute of Limitations in Medical Malpractice Cases
Michigan’s statute of limitations on medical malpractice gives you two years to file your case. After that, you can lose your right to seek compensation regardless of how serious your injuries were. It’s crucial to seek legal assistance immediately after a medical error to preserve your rights.
What if you didn’t know your doctor committed an error until much later? Thanks to the state’s discovery rule, the two-year time period doesn’t begin to run until the date you discover or should have discovered the mistake. In other words, you won’t be penalized for not realizing something was wrong sooner.
If something doesn’t feel right after a medical procedure or course of treatment, don’t ignore your intuition. Get in touch with Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys as soon as possible.
Schedule Your Free Consultation Today
We invite Warren residents who believe they might be the victims of medical malpractice to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation and get answers to their most pressing questions.
Our capable malpractice attorneys will inform you of your rights, explain your legal options, and guide you in pursuing the compensation you need and deserve. Contact us today to discuss your case.