Medical Malpractice

Factors to Keep in Mind for Medical Malpractice Victims

Have you been injured by medical malpractice? Here are a few things you should know before you try to seek compensation for your losses:

• Only the patient can claim malpractice – You can’t make a malpractice claim against a doctor you haven’t seen (even if your doctor consulted with someone else, which contributed to the problem).
• There is a minimum standard of care – Your medical staff doesn’t have to be flawless. There is some leeway, so malpractice is about more than you not being happy with a doctor.
• There has to be direct cause – In other words, you can’t hold a practitioner responsible for damage caused by your illness. It’s not the doctor’s fault that you became ill in the first place.
• You must be able to prove damages – If things are handled poorly but you eventually make a full recovery and you don’t lose out on income or other factors due to the negligence, there’s really nothing to claim. You have to have lost something in order to be eligible for compensation. Losses can include physical harm (e.g., the wrong limb gets amputated), lost wages (e.g., you can’t work for a time due to the malpractice), increased medical expenses due to the mistake, pain and suffering (e.g., it affects your relationship with your mate), or some other tangible damages.

Southern California’s Personal Injury Experts

Petrov Law Firm has the experienced personal injury attorneys that you want on your side when you need to be compensated for losses. To get the legal assistance you need, contact us today by calling our San Diego office at 619-344-0360.

4 Requirements for a Medical Malpractice Claim

If you believe you have suffered a personal injury at the hands of a medical professional, malpractice may be involved. How can you know if you deserve compensation from the practitioner or facility where you were treated? Here are 4 requirements for a medical malpractice claim.

1. You did not receive the proper standard of care – You can’t just be unhappy with the practitioner. You must be able to show that a minimum standard was not met. Doctors and other medical staff are not legally required to be perfect, so a degree of negligence must be involved.
2. Your injury was caused by the practitioner – The medical staff is not responsible for illness or injuries that you suffered before seeking assistance. However, if the practitioner causes harm due to negligence, malpractice may be involved.
3. You are a patient of the doctor – You can’t claim malpractice against another physician that your doctor may have consulted with. Only a doctor that you see as a patient can be guilty of malpractice.
4. You must have suffered injury, damages, or losses – You can’t just be mad at your doctor for the way things were handled. Maybe you got a misdiagnosis, but if you later got the correct one, were treated properly, and suffered no losses, it’s not malpractice. You must have suffered harm, lost work, experienced increased medical bills, and so forth.

Personal Injury Attorneys in Southern California

For more personal injury advice, continue to read our blog on a weekly basis. To obtain the legal support that you need in the San Diego Area, call the Petrov Law Firm today at 619-344-0360.

Top 5 Industries for Work Injury Claims

Some jobs are just more dangerous than others. However, you may be surprised to find out which career fields see the most claims. We’re going to take a look at five jobs that may not seem that dangerous at first glance but that result in a high percentage of claims according to California’s Department of Labor.

1. Animal workers – Animals can be unpredictable. So whether your job is to feed, raise, or slaughter animals, you’re in one of the riskiest businesses in California.
2. Messengers – Between UPS, FedEx, and the US postal office, there isn’t a huge private courier service population. But if you are the rare independent messenger, be careful. Injury rates are over 6%.
3. Woodworking – If you work in manufacturing and deal with wood product assembly, you’re actually in the most dangerous manufacturing field.
4. Air transport – Passengers may be far safer in the air than on land, but pilots, aircraft mechanics, and workers who transfer freight are all at high risk.
5. Nursing and home care – This is the number one most dangerous job in California based on the sheer rate of injuries. And if you thought you were in danger working in the private sector, government employees face nearly double the risk of any other career in the state.

Personal Injury Lawyers in Southern California

If you have suffered a personal injury in or near the San Diego area, the experienced personal injury attorneys at Petrov Law Firm are here to help. Just call 619-344-0360 to get started on your case today.

6 Categories that Qualify as Wrongful Death

There is nothing more tragic than losing a loved one prematurely due to someone else’s negligence. We’re going to list 6 broad categories of circumstances that constitute wrongful death. If your family has faced one of these situations, you need to find a compassionate lawyer to help you through this difficult time.

1. Medical malpractice – Doctors and their staff need to perform the right medical procedures and provide the proper doses of medication to avoid culpability in a patient’s death.
2. Auto accidents – Whether the other driver was under the influence of something, driving recklessly, or just plain negligent in driving practices or in maintaining the vehicle, it may qualify as wrongful
3. Transportation accidents – Cars are not the only place where a wrongful death can occur. The same holds true when a person travels via plane, train, or bus.
4. Product defects – Whether there is something wrong with the product itself or the instructions on how to use it safely, this may qualify as wrongful
5. Failure to properly train employees – If an employee is killed on the job because he or she received insufficient safety training regarding a foreseeable danger, the incident may have been preventable.
6. Unsafe roadways – Road hazards happen, but what if the hazard is fixable and has been in place for weeks or even months with no warning to drivers. This may qualify as a wrongful death case as well.

Legal Assistance When You Need It Most

If your family is dealing with a tragedy due to one of the circumstances noted above, contact Petrov Law Firm. We provide the compassionate legal assistance that families in Southern California need when calamity strikes. Call 619-344-0360 to speak to someone about your circumstances today.

5 Common Personal Injury Suits in California

When most people think of personal injury, they immediately focus on car accidents and slip and fall accidents. While these are two of the most common types of personal injuries that occur, they are far from being the only common ones. Here are 5 other injuries that frequently lead to suits in California.

1. Work Injuries – Dangers on the job pose a real threat to workers. You don’t even have to be in a manual labor job to experience an injury at work. Office workers suffer injuries due to unsafe conditions as well.
2. Defective Products – An accident can happen when a product is used improperly, but what if you were following the instructions to a T and are still injured? You may able to receive compensation, especially if a defect that the manufacturer should have known about is what resulted in the injury.
3. Medical Malpractice – While there are some laws in place that protect medical professionals from frivolous claims, if you are the victim of negligence on the part of a medical professional, there are also laws that will allow you to receive due
4. Dangerous Medications – Sometimes a medication makes it past the FDA, but further dangers are discovered once the product has been on the market for a time. If you were taking it with a prescription, this might give you grounds to file suit.
5. Assault – If someone injuries you on purpose, you have the potential for making a claim. The assailant could be in for jail time as well as the potential for having to make financial compensation.

Personal Injury Claims in Southern California

If you have suffered a personal injury in the San Diego area, the attorneys at Petrov Law Firm can help you to seek the compensation you deserve. To get your claim started, call 619-344-0360 today.

Petting Zoo and Riding Horse Injuries

However, animals bite. And when provoked, any of these gentle animals could easily draw blood or remove a child’s finger. Luckily, these kinds of incidents are rare and most petting zoos carry sufficient insurance to cover any kind of unfortunate incident between your child and an animal.

If your child was injured at a horse farm or petting zoo, contact a lawyer to get help navigating the complexity of filing an insurance claim. Don’t let the insurance company talk you out of using a lawyer.

You can expect that your lawyer will get sufficient money to cover any medical expenses — including trauma treatment for your child. Because petting zoo animals are not considered to be dangerous or wild, it is unlikely that the animal will be destroyed. However, the animal is likely to be removed from the general population to deter further incidents.

Daycare Dilemmas

One simple email from a daycare provider can turn a parent’s household upside down. “A child that attends class with your son or daughter has been found to carry _____________.” That blank can be filled in with something as common as lice or as rare as pinworms. Regardless, that email fills a parent with dread, and indicates hours of household cleaning with bleach and multiple trips to the doctor.

Daycare centers walk a fine line when it comes to sharing medical information with parents. While they are legally required to inform parents of potential infections and diseases, daycare centers have to follow medical privacy laws.

If your child becomes sick or infected with a parasite from a daycare center, you might have a case of negligence. However, simple sickness does not mean you have a case. The daycare center must be neglectful in its cleanliness, maintenance, and responsiveness to problems. No daycare center is going to be perfectly clean. And if you want your children to run around in the sunshine, they can be exposed to dirt and standing water.

While you may not be an expert in daycare operations, as a parent you can request to spend a day at the daycare center observing the staff’s attentiveness, cleaning procedures, and hygiene practices. Discretely take notes. (Send text messages to yourself noting anything that needs improvement.) In addition, you can request a meeting with the center’s director and ask to see the operations handbook. Ask for more details about the infectious disease and ask what steps the daycare center took to avoid further exposure.

Once you have collected some information, consult a personal injury attorney. Present your findings to the lawyer. If the lawyer thinks you have a case of neglect, you might be able to collect damages for medical costs, lost wages for you, and pain and suffering for your child.

No daycare center is going to be perfect. However, spending some time observing the day-to-day activities will help you and your attorney decide if legal action is necessary.

Personal Injury Log

If you’ve been injured in a car accident or through a slip-and-fall, it’s critical that you start a detailed diary about your injury. Personal injury claims can take years to work through the legal system. By the time your lawyer is in final negotiations, you won’t be able to remember how much pain you were in at various points after the accident.

Start with a log of your physical pain. Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten. Write down the time and date you experienced physical pain. This will help your lawyer prove the extent of your on-going pain and suffering. These numbers will be translated into dollars for the court case or settlement.

Write down your lost wages. You will need to establish a base period of pay to show the lost wages. First, put a copy of your most recent tax records in a folder. Then, add as many current-year pay stubs (prior to the accident) as you can. Lawyers and judges want to see hard evidence.

Keep track of any out-of-pocket expenses. Medical co-pays, over-the-counter medications, and miles you drive for medical appointments should all be paid back to you as part of your case. The more details you can provide, the more money your lawyer can fight to get on your behalf. If the amounts seem small now, keep in mind your lawyer will fight for a settlement that includes current and future costs. If you multiply your out-of-pocket expenses by ten years, you will see a large amount of money due to you.

Find one spot where you can keep these records — and nothing else. An empty drawer or unused backpack is a good choice for storing papers. If you are like most people in pain, you won’t have the energy to organize these documents in a perfect way every day. Keep the receipts and the log books in one spot and organize everything when you have the energy.

You and your lawyer will appreciate it when you deposit the settlement check.

Extended Travel and Power of Attorney

Perhaps you are in-between jobs and you want to travel Europe by train for ten weeks. Maybe you’ve retired and you are going on an extended world cruise. Or you have fallen in love with someone from Brazil and you are going to spend three months in Rio.

Before you go, ask your lawyer to create a non-durable power of attorney. Even simple matters, like getting a replacement credit card, can be made easier when you have a power of attorney. More complicated issues, like long stay visa applications, are significantly easier when you have someone in the states able to act on your behalf.

Banks, credit card companies, and insurance companies will often only speak directly to you and only use the address on file for claims unless you have a power of attorney.

You may also want to include some contingency variations in case you get sick or become incapacitated while you are traveling. A car accident in Athens could wreak havoc on your personal finances if you are laid up in a Greek hospital for a month. Your power of attorney could step in and protect your credit and your assets until you are able to act on your own again.

What is Pain and Suffering?

Pain and suffering can be part of the financial settlements for personal injury claims. There are a few different categories of “pain and suffering.” If you are experiencing any kind of physical or mental pain after an accident, you should immediately speak to a lawyer who will help you define the problem to make the right kind of claim.

“Pain and suffering” typically means the physical pain caused by the accident and the subsequent healing process. If you fall and break your leg, there is an assumed level of pain for a defined period of time. For that limited period of time, you might be eligible for financial compensation.

“Emotional distress” usually means an on-going problem like anxiety, fear, and loss of sleep. This can be included in the pain and suffering claim, or it can be determined to be an additional problem. For example, there is more emotional distress when you are the victim of a hold up compared to being the victim of a fall.

“Loss of enjoyment” is the term to describe the impact of the incident on your day-to-day life. If you broke your leg and it healed well, you don’t have any additional loss of enjoyment beyond the initial pain and suffering. If the break was severe and you can’t run as a hobby anymore, you may be eligible for a loss of enjoyment claim.

“Loss of consortium” is generally a euphemism for “can’t have sex.” However, some states include general family time. This is a claim that will sometimes pay you, the victim, or may pay your spouse or partner.

Each state has specific laws that define each category. If you are suffering, you don’t have to suffer alone. Call an attorney to help you find how the law can ease some of that pain.