|
Plaintiff
The party who initiates a legal action; in a personal injury lawsuit, the person who alleges that he or she has suffered monetary damages due the negligence of another party.
Proximate Cause
Proximate cause is defined legally as a cause which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any intervening event, produces injury, and without which, the injury would not have occurred.
Comparative negligence
The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties.
Medical negligence
Failure of a physician or other medical personnel to meet the standards of conduct for duties relating to the medical profession. Those standards are based on what a reasonable person with the requisite knowledge and skills would or would not do.
Affidavit
A voluntary statement or declaration of facts that has been written down and confirmed under oath.
Res ipsa loquitur
The use of res ipsa loquitur should be prohibited in medical malpractice cases because under this doctrine the mere fact that the injury occurs means that the defendant was negligent, although it is not all the time.
Duty of Care
Once a doctor or health care professional agrees to diagnose or treat a patient, he or she has assumed a duty of care toward that patient.
Interrogatories
A form of discovery in which one party submits a series of written questions to the other party, and to which the latter is bound to answer under oath.
Noneconomic damages
Damages payable for items other than monetary losses, such as pain and suffering. The term technically includes punitive damages, but those are typically discussed separately.
Anesthesia
A large class of claims related to anesthesia has resulted from cases where the anesthesiologist or anesthetist did not take a complete medical history of angina, myocardial infarction, recent upper respiratory infection, and asthma.
|
Did You Know?