Yes, you can legally file a malpractice lawsuit on your own, but self-representation rarely works in practice. Once you find out a medical error caused your injury, you likely sense that you may have a right to be paid for it. However, you may have no idea how to get to that point, and the medical professional certainly is not going to be eager to simply put money in your pocket.
A patient who sues alone faces the same court rules, deadlines and expert requirements as anyone else, while the doctor or hospital is usually defended by experienced lawyers and an insurer. You will have a better chance of demonstrating your entitlement to money and receiving enough compensation to pay for your injuries when you hire a lawyer to represent you in the legal process. A medical malpractice lawyer in McLean, VA offers free initial consultations to discuss your case and your legal rights.
The Risks of Suing a Doctor on Your Own
Without the guidance of a lawyer, you will stand very little chance of winning your case.
You are up against a medical provider and their insurance company, who are often reluctant to admit fault, both because it will harm their reputation and they may have to pay you a lot of money. You will need to come to the table with proof that the defendant was negligent to qualify for financial compensation. It is far from automatic that you will be able to make this showing on your own. Getting the doctor’s own account of your care, under oath, takes a medical malpractice attorney who knows how to question them.
Medical malpractice cases are very detailed and scientific. Any type of personal injury case is difficult to win because you have to show exactly what the responsible party did and argue why it fell short of the duty of care they owed you. Malpractice claims raise that bar even higher. You will need to reconstruct the care that you received, not knowing the hows and whys of what the doctor did. At the same time, you will often have to find a way to puncture the veneer of credibility that a doctor has by virtue of both their training and the trust that the general public places in them.
What a Patient Has to Show
When you have suffered an injury by a doctor’s carelessness, you begin with an adverse medical result and the suspicion that your doctor did not do their job as intended. There are many steps between those pieces of knowledge and being able to prove malpractice. You may begin with a set of medical records and the end result of your treatment, but you will need to connect all the dots to show why the doctor did something wrong. That is not an easy task for anyone, and it will be seriously risky to do on your own.
In general terms, a claim asks whether the provider owed you a duty of care, whether the care fell below the accepted standard, whether that failure caused your injury, and what harm you suffered as a result. When you hire a lawyer for your case, their primary task will be to work to establish medical negligence in your case. Your lawyer can call on expert witnesses and work alongside them to prove the claim. The experts will review your medical records and the treatment you received to reach their own opinion about what the doctor did. Then, they will compare your doctor’s actions to those that a reasonable medical professional of ordinary training and experience would have done under the circumstances.
Virginia generally expects this expert support to be in place before the provider is served with the lawsuit, a step explained in our guide to the certificate of merit in Virginia.
Filing Deadlines That Can End a Claim
Missing the medical malpractice statute of limitations means that you lose your right to sue. In Virginia, the filing deadline for most malpractice claims is generally two years, and only narrow exceptions that depend on the facts can extend it. Claims against a government-run hospital may also require an early written notice with a shorter time limit.
Regardless of the medical malpractice statute of limitations, you have a limited time to collect important evidence in your case. Records, staff and memories can be hard to track down later, so request your medical records early.
What a Successful Malpractice Claim Can Recover
A successful claim seeks money for the losses the injury caused. These often include:
- Medical bills, including care you will likely need in the future
- Lost wages and any lasting loss of earning ability
- Pain, suffering and emotional distress
- Out-of-pocket costs tied to the injury, such as travel to appointments or help at home
Virginia generally caps the total amount a malpractice case can recover, as our overview of medical malpractice damage caps explains, so the value of a claim depends both on the facts and on that limit.
How Lawyer Fees Usually Work
Many lawyers who represent patients work on a contingency fee, which means the fee is a share of any settlement or verdict and there is usually no fee if the case recovers nothing. Because little or nothing is paid up front, the fee is often less of a barrier than people expect.
Malpractice cases also carry costs, such as expert reviews, record fees and court filing costs. Lawyers often advance these costs and are repaid from the recovery, but the written fee agreement should spell out how costs are handled if the case is lost. A separate guide covers how much it costs to sue a hospital.
Getting Your Case Reviewed
A lawyer’s review is usually the clearest way to learn whether a claim is worth pursuing. The same questions apply whether the care took place at large hospitals such as Inova Fairfax and Virginia Hospital Center or at a small clinic.
Before a review, gather what you have: medical records, bills, the names of the providers involved and a short timeline of your symptoms and treatment. The firm’s page on medical malpractice claims in McLean explains how a case review works.
Talk With Tysons Trial Law
If you or a family member was harmed by someone else’s carelessness, Tysons Trial Law, PLLC can review what happened in a free consultation.
