Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital

Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital ORDER NOW FOR CUSTOMIZED AND ORIGINAL ESSAY PAPERS ON Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital Scenario (based on a real Massachusetts case): A patient who was allegedly injured due to the negligence of a hospital in Massachusetts brought a medical malpractice suit against the hospital. During discovery in the case, the patient and his attorney learned that the hospital had lost the patient’s medical records, which contained the only documentation of the critical time period during which the alleged malpractice event occurred. Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital What is the duty of the hospital to properly maintain the record? Imagine you are on the jury in this case. How does the fact that this patient’s record turned up missing make you feel about the hospital’s case? What might the judge do in this situation that would make the case more difficult for the hospital to win? healthcare_law_chapter_10.ppt negligence1.docx At 7:14 PM on Sunday, December 9, 2018, [email protected] wrote I wanted to take a moment and correct a misunderstanding that some of you may have with regard to negligence. I’ve often seen students, when trying to find a reason to sue someone in one of the discussion scenarios, say something like, “The suit should be based on breach of duty.” That kind of statement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of negligence. Negligence is one of many kinds of torts. Other torts include assault, battery, invasion of privacy, and so on. Torts like battery and invasion of privacy are intentional torts—someone did something bad on purpose. Negligence is an unintentional tort—somebody was careless and an accident happened. In order for there to be negligence, the defendant must have satisfied ALL of the elements of the tort. Those elements are: Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital A duty of care exists. That duty was breached by the defendant. The breach of duty was the actual and proximate cause of the harm. AND The plaintiff suffered damages. In order to sue someone for negligence, you must have ALL of the elements. You cannot sue anyone based upon just one of the elements. It is impossible to sue someone for “breach of duty” or to sue someone based on “causation.” Those things are only parts of a tort, and they cannot form the basis of a lawsuit by themselves. So, when reviewing a scenario, look to see if all four of these elements exist. If so, then you have a negligence claim. Short of that, you do not have negligence. Another common misconception concerns the terms misfeasance , malfeasance , and nonfeasance . Often, I will see students want to sue someone “based on misfeasance.” That doesn’t work. These three terms are not torts at all. They are just ways of classifying or describing tortious behavior. A misfeasance is an instance of wrongdoing of a fairly minor nature. Something bad was done, but it wasn’t that serious. A malfeasance is also an instance of wrongdoing, but is more serious. The distinction between the two is a little like venial and mortal sins, if you’re familiar with Catholic doctrine. Both involve some act being done that is wrongful. In contrast, a nonfeasance happens when somebody is supposed to do something, but fails to do it. For example, if a doctor is supposed to administer a medication but forgets to do it, that is a nonfeasance. Like I said, though, misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance are not tort theories. You cannot sue someone based on a “nonfeasance theory.” It doesn’t work. You have to select an actual tort theory, not a type of tort. So, if I give you a scenario where something bad happened and ask to identify a tort that was committed, you should say something like negligence, assault, invasion of privacy, etc. Don’t say “misfeasance,” because that’s not a legal tort theory. That would be like me asking you “What’s your favorite movie?” and you answering “ones that are in color.” Obviously, there are lots of movies shown in color, and I’m asking you to pick a particular one. I hope that helped more than confused. Shoot me an email if you have any questions. Case Study: medical malpractice suit against the hospital Get a 10 % discount on an order above $ 100 Use the following coupon code : NURSING10