If you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, it’s not only important to receive justice for your own suffering but also help prevent somebody else suffering the same problems in the future. With this in mind, here are some of the ways you can be sure you have the best chance of succeeding with your case.
Be prepared to appeal
No matter how obvious you think it is that medical malpractice has occurred, it’s important to always have it in mind that you might not succeed in your court proceedings first time around. Appeals to court cases are a lot more common than you think, and a surprising number of decisions are overturned during this process. While you may think the law is the law, different judges may interpret the evidence and the legislation differently to others. With this in mind, it’s important to prepare for the possibility of an appeal even before your first case has begun.
If you want to challenge the judge’s initial decision, it’s important that you have a clear record of what happened during the first trial. While you and your team will always have memories and notes of what happened during the case, it’s important that you have an independent professional to transcribe every single sentence uttered during a case. Make sure you approach a court reporting service for medical malpractice to help you record every single moment of the initial case. If you do find that your case does go to appeal, it will be very difficult to question or challenge any decisions that have been made unless you have this clear record of how this decision was made.
Present as much evidence as possible
In any case, and especially during a medical malpractice case, it’s important to produce as much evidence as possible to support your argument. The underlying legal rule of any case is that the person on trial is “innocent until proven guilty”, so it’s you and your legal team’s job to try and come up with enough evidence to overwhelmingly prove that the defendant is indeed guilty. The only problem with a medical malpractice case is that much of this evidence is extremely personal. It’s important that you don’t withhold any information because you find it embarrassing to disclose to somebody you don’t know. All of the people involved in these cases are professionals and will treat every piece of information you disclose in a sensitive manner.
Think about how it’s affected your friends and family
You might think that a medical mistake would only affect the person whose health has been impacted. In fact, it can affect your partner, your friends, your family and even your employer and colleagues can feel the effects of a serious incident. As well as presenting evidence of how the problem has affected you, submit evidence of how it has affected your loved ones.
For example, a loved one may have lost money due to having to take time off work to look after you, or even suffered mentally from the stress of it all.