If you’ve been a victim of medical malpractice, you have already been subjected to injury, damages and emotional distress, even before your case makes it to trial. For this reason, it’s important to be prepared and know what to expect before you end up in court so you won’t be surprised when the defense begins their testimony.
Doctors accused of medical negligence will come up with any number of excuses and defenses; in fact, they would be too numerous to name them all here. However, there are certain ones that tend to come up more frequently and are therefore worth mentioning.
If you are potentially facing a trial in your medical malpractice claim, some of the defenses you might hear from the doctor and his or her attorneys could include:
It’s the patient’s fault. A doctor being accused of causing a patient harm might opt to place the blame back on the victim to try and avoid responsibility.
The patient’s injury worsened because he or she didn’t mitigate properly. This defense is used in an attempt to lessen the portion of damages that the doctor is being accused of. Some doctors will try to prove that because a patient failed to seek additional or follow up treatment, it is their own fault that their injury worsened.
Informed consent protects me. Some physicians try to claim that since a patient signed an informed consent form prior to treatment, they assume all responsibility for the treatment they are receiving and absolve the doctor of any blame should something go wrong. This, of course, is false.
The patient knew the risks involved in having the procedure they underwent, therefore the doctor can’t be held accountable for anything that may have gone wrong.
The patient did not disclose pertinent information to the doctor that would have helped to avoid the injury or damages.
The patient was involved in some other intervening activity or treatment following the alleged malpractice thus breaking the chain of events that link the doctor’s negligence to the injury or harm.
The alleged negligence did not worsen or exacerbate the patient’s injuries, therefore there is no malpractice.
Certainly a creative defense attorney may conjure up a different defense than those listed here, but these are the most common excuses heard in response malpractice claims. The good news is that, although there is never a guarantee, an experienced medical lawyer will be familiar with all of these defenses and more than capable of countering these claims and disproving them on your behalf to help you prove your case.
