You or your baby suffered harm during labor and delivery. Your surgeon operated on your bladder instead of your gallbladder, ultimately leaving you without both.
You ultimately found out you had cancer, but only after getting a second opinion after another doctor misdiagnosed you. These are just three of countless examples where a physician or some other medical professional could have caused you to suffer a preventable injury or illness and accompanying pain and suffering or mental anguish.
If you’ve had the misfortune of enduring this unnecessary, preventable harm, you may want to hold the health care practitioner who didn’t uphold their duty of care accountable for their negligent actions.
Do you need to know how to do that? Below, we discuss how to sue a doctor in Louisiana.
Taking Legal Action To Hold a Health Care Provider Liable for Medical Malpractice
Virtually anyone can sue another; however, a judge is likely to classify a lawsuit as frivolous if it seems to be filed in bad taste or does not have merits.
Louisiana is unique in that it doesn’t allow just anyone to sue someone for medical malpractice like they would any other civil lawsuit. Instead, potential cases must first be assessed by a medical review panel.
Let us explain.
According to the Louisiana Division of Administration, there’s a legal entity that it refers to as the Medical Review Panel that is in charge of assessing the merits of most claims filed against publicly-employed health care providers.
Before determining the validity of your claim, the 3-licensed health care provider panelists will review any evidence of wrongdoing (or the lack thereof) submitted by the patient (plaintiff) and medical practitioner (defendant).
In the end, they will issue a report of their findings, which may include one of the following conclusions:
- That the medical provider breached the standard of care they owed their patient, thus paving the way for them to proceed with a malpractice claim
- That the evidence submitted didn’t allow medical experts to determine who was liable for the plaintiff’s injuries or illness and should be decided on by a judge
Generally, the report that the medical panel authors is clear in justifying the reasons why they believe health care provider errors occurred or not.
It’s plausible that, should an injured or ill patient move forward in filing a malpractice claim, they’d be able to not only cite this report when doing so, but also bring in the medical panelists themselves to testify at trial about their decision making.
If a patient is given the proverbial “green light” to take their case to trial, there would be a formal filing of the case in the local court system.
Having an experienced Baton Rouge medical malpractice lawyer assist you in making this filing can be extremely helpful. From there, the case would likely unfold like most other personal injury cases in the sense that some of the following steps may occur:
- The gathering of additional evidence, such as medical records and bills, lost wage statements, and other documentation to justify a request for monetary compensation
- The sourcing of additional medical experts to substantiate claims of a medical provider’s deviation from an appropriate standard of care
- The scheduling of discovery deadlines, pre-trial hearings, and trial dates may occur
- A jury would be impaneled
- A presentation of opening statements, a presentation of evidence, and closing remarks would occur
- A jury would deliberate the case and reach a verdict in addition to deciding on a monetary award
Elements You Must Be Able To Prove To Move Forward With a Lawsuit
Now, one difference between medical malpractice cases that proceed to trial in Louisiana and other types of personal injury cases that do is that there is a slight difference in the elements a plaintiff or attorney must prove in these cases. They are:
- There was a doctor-patient relationship
- The medical provider violated their standard of care (which is essentially what a similarly trained health care provider in the same geographic area would have done)
- The breach of that standard of care caused you to suffer harm (i.e., you to suffer an injury or your illness to worsen)
- You sustained damages (economic and noneconomic) because of that health care provider’s negligent or intentional actions
Why It’s Important To Take Swift Action To Sue a Louisiana Doctor
Plaintiffs generally only have one year to file a lawsuit against a health care provider who committed errors that harmed them. After that, they may forever lose their right to hold them financially liable for their actions.
It’s important to note that once you submit your claim for evaluation by the Louisiana medical panel, that does essentially “freeze” the statute of limitations, which is the lawsuit filing window.
However, given how complex medical negligence cases can be to build, it’s best that you treat that timeline as if it were still winding down instead of waiting until the bitter end to take action. Taking time to build your case ensures the best possible outcome.
If a health care provider harmed you and you’re considering suing a doctor or other practitioner for the harm you suffered, reach out to our law office, Bianca | Matkins, right away.
We’ll have you discuss the onset of your injuries or illness with a medical malpractice attorney in Baton Rouge, who can advise you whether you have a pursuable claim and, if so, how you can expect your case to unfold.
