I hate those television commercials that encourage you to “Call now!” or risk missing out on some unbeatable deal. The deal will usually still be there tomorrow. However, there is one time when “Call now!” makes a lot of sense and that is when you have, or even think you may have, a medical malpractice claim. If you don’t “Call now,” you may find that it is too late to bring your case or at least too late to get a good lawyer to agree to take it for you.
Good medical malpractice lawyers don’t take every case that comes their way. They literally cannot afford to do so. Medical malpractice cases are among the most complicated and most expensive cases in our civil justice system. They almost always require that the lawyer hire expert witnesses, whose hourly charges can exceed $1,000 per hour. The cases may require the hiring of multiple experts in different fields. If the lawyer does not win the case, she doesn’t get reimbursed for whatever she has paid out to expert witnesses or others. Medical malpractice cases require lots and lots of time spent on the part of the lawyer and, if she does not win the case, she doesn’t get paid for her time either. Complicating this problem is the fact that doctors and hospitals win 85-90% of all medical malpractice cases that are tried across the country.
For these reasons, good medical malpractice lawyers typically are forced to turn down one hundred potential cases or so for every one they are able to take. This places a premium on identifying those cases that have the best chance of being successful. A medical malpractice lawyer does not do a prospective client any favors if he takes a case that is not likely to be successful. At the end of a losing case, the client may be hit with a “cost judgment” in favor of the defendants and that cost judgment may easily be in excess of $25,000. That is a lot of money for any client.
Identifying those cases that have the best chance of being successful requires time and money. Among the things the experienced medical malpractice attorney must do is collect all of the important medical records. This may require getting records from many different providers. The attorney and his staff must review and analyze the records. Do they support what the client says happened? Do they demonstrate the existence of a serious injury caused by medical malpractice? If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then the attorney must begin hiring expert medical witnesses to review the records and to discuss the case with the attorney. It doesn’t matter what the attorney may think, if she cannot find qualified expert witnesses who are willing to testify in court in support of the case. These expert medical witnesses are usually busy professionals, who cannot drop everything to review a case for an attorney.
By now it should be clear that the investigation performed by a good medical malpractice lawyer is going to take time. In all but the simplest cases, the investigation is going to take at least three months, and sometimes significantly longer than that. It is your job as the prospective client to call the attorney early enough that the attorney can complete the investigation before the expiration of whatever legal deadlines may be out there.
There are a number of possible legal deadlines that may affect your medical malpractice case and they are case specific; that means the deadline that applies to your case will depend on the facts of your case. The deadline could be as soon as 180 days after the malpractice event. Cases involving care by resident physicians in a state university program are considered to be cases against state employees and a Notice of Claim must be served no more than 180 days after the malpractice claim arises. If you are late, you are out of luck and out of court.
The most common deadline is the two year statute of limitations for personal injuries. It too has exceptions, however, that depend on the facts of the case. Given the time it takes to conduct the necessary investigation, you need to be talking to the malpractice lawyer at least four months before the statute of limitations expires, and even that may be too late.
Medical records are notoriously opaque. It is only when you get into litigation and take the depositions of the treating medical personnel that you begin to understand what really happened. This discovery may result in the identification of new defendants. However, if the statute of limitations has run by the time the new defendants are identified, it may be too late to add them to the suit and the case may be completely lost or the value of the case seriously diminished as a result.
All of this means that, if you think you may have a medical malpractice case, don’t just sit around thinking about whether you do or don’t or whether you should take action. Call an experienced malpractice lawyer and let him or her investigate your case. I file meritorious cases as soon as I have completed my investigation and have my expert witnesses lined up. That way, if something unexpected comes up or new defendants appear, I still have time to add them to the suit before the statute of limitations expires.
Bottom Line: Call Now!
