Illinois Lawyer Referrals and Legal Guidance

When a Doctor's Negligence is not Worth a Lawsuit

Findgreatlawyers.com helps people who are looking for legal guidance or attorney referrals for any Illinois legal matter including medical malpractice. When you call or contact our office you will immediately speak with an attorney that will answer any questions you have or refer you to lawyer that fits your needs. For more information on what we do, read our how it works section or please call us at (312) 346-5320 or (800) 517-1614 or fill out our contact us form and we will contact you. All calls and emails are confidential and free. For additional information about Illinois medical malpractice, please read on. 

An injury sustained from an action of a medical provider does not always equal malpractice. To establish medical malpractice, it must be proven that the professional or facility fell below their standard of care (in other words, that they were negligent), and that the deviance from the standard resulted in injury. In order to prove negligence, a credible expert must testify as to what the standard is, and testify that the professional or facility indeed did fall below that standard. Finding an expert is typically something the law firm you hire takes care of. However, just because you have an expert that says a medical provider messed up does not mean that you have a lawsuit worth bringing.

Medical malpractice lawsuits in Illinois are time-consuming, complex, and expensive. Insurance companies fight most cases making the suits cost more and take longer. A typical malpractice trial can last for several weeks and can cost over $100,000 in expenses. Those fees are for experts and litigation support, not attorney's fees. As such, it is not necessarily worth the cost of a lawsuit in a case where the injury sustained was minor, or especially in a case where there was indeed negligence, but no injury resulted.

An example of a case that wouldn't likely be worth bringing a lawsuit would be if you went to the hospital with severe stomach pain and were told that you were fine. Later that evening the pain became so bad that you went to a different hospital and learned that your appendix was about to burst. A doctor tells you that had you waited any longer you could have died. This understandably would make you upset.

In that example you didn't have significant additional medical costs because of the error at the first hospital. In other words, you still would have had to have your appendix removed. And while you could have died, luckily you did not. Medical malpractice lawsuits in Illinois are based on what did happen, not what could have happened. In a case where the injury does not greatly affect the injured party's life in any meaningful way, including a lack of monetary loss from missing work, pain and suffering, etc., the possible damages that could be recovered would be very small. Since a malpractice case costs thousands of dollars, it only makes sense to bring about a lawsuit when the damages that can be recovered are considerably more than the cost of trial.

Since just about every law firm we know advances all of the costs on a case, they typically don't take on a case unless they think there is a strong chance of recovery and that the recovery will be great. It's really risk/reward on their part. And since these lawsuits are time intensive, most Illinois medical malpractice law firms limit the number of cases that they take in so they can devote their time to just a handful of cases.

This does not mean, however, that a medical professional or facility can just get away with negligence. In cases where a lawsuit is not feasible, the professional/facility can still be investigated by the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. If it is determined that there was a violation, the Department of Professional Regulations can suspend the professional's license, put the professional on probation, and even revoke the professional's license.

If you would like to discuss what happened to you in the course of your medical care, please do not hesitate to contact us and explain your situation. We will be happy to review your situation for free, even if that means we help you determine that there isn't a case that is worth bringing. Please fill out our contact us form and we will do whatever we can to help you.

Since 2001 findgreatlawyers.com has helped thousands of people who needed a trusted resource to answer their medical malpractice questions or wanted a referral to an Illinois medical malpractice attorney.