recently in Illinois, a child was rushed to an emergency room by his parents for the constant crying and vomiting prevents him from caring. The emergency room doctor diagnosed the child with a gastro-intestinal colic, and sent the family back home instructions on how to deal with the colic. The next day, the child to a painful death due to a rare heart defect that the physician would have the appointment of a standard chest X-ray. When the child's parents hired Chicago medical liability lawyers and sued the hospital and the emergency room doctor, a jury, both defendants are liable for $ 2,250,000th

Multi-million-dollar medical liability judgments begs the question of how the jury on such figures. What is the measure of punishment for a doctor only the errors that adequately compensate the loss of grieving parents? Apparently not a lot of money will ever compensate them or their parents following the loss of a child. Even if such a number can be achieved, is it really fair to the doctors liable?

In any profession or line of work, people, even licensed professionals make mistakes. Unfortunately for doctors, every day, mistakes can lead to medical malpractice litigation with unfathomable tragedies such as brain damage, birth injuries, quadriplegia, amputations and death.

The Illinois legal system has developed guidelines for the striking the proper balance between protecting patients and doctors through (1) limitations on the filing of cases (2), caps on certain types of damages, and (3) comparison of negligence.

The filing of a complaint Illinois medical liability

An Illinois medical liability process, in most cases, must be completed within a 2-year period shall be barred from the date on which the misconduct would have been reasonably discovered, but no more than 4 years from the date of treatment. This means that some patients a longer time after the medical treatment until they are reasonably discover medical liability.

For example, if a woman learns surgery to prevent future pregnancies, and winds up pregnant three years later, she still has a year to bring an action because they do not have reasonably discovered the malpractice until she became pregnant three years after surgery . Despite the extension, for the discovery of irregularities, all cases are subject to a limit of four years. So if the woman became pregnant 5 years later, they would no longer be capable of a medical malpractice claim.

The Illinois medical liability limitation is to protect the doctors against the outdated information. The more time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend against the actions in the past. Moreover, the statute of limitations, so that doctors do not have to worry about their mistake for an unlimited time. The period can be longer in cases where minors or shorter against state institutions.

Once it is established that a case meets the statute of limitations an action can only be filed if a patient is the medical malpractice lawyer finds an expert who is prepared to testify about a breach of standard care.

In any medical malpractice action, the overarching issue is whether a doctor, against the standard of care in his area of practice. Maintenance requirements are standard for every field of medicine, so medical liability experts have doctors who practice in the field of medicine, in a given process. To show that there is a breach of the standard care in a medical field, there must be an expert who is willing to testify for the plaintiff and said that the doctor does not call into question the standard of care in the industrialized . Without expert testimony, medical malpractice cases have not even added to the file.

Illinois medical liability damages

There are three types of damage, usually in Illinois law: the economic damage, non-economic damages and punitive damages. As the name suggests, punitive damages are used as a form of punishment, and are not available in medical malpractice. The reasons for non-punitive damages that medical malpractice is a form of negligence, which is a non-intentional tort that society in general, not to punish.

Economic losses, all medical bills and costs arising from malpractice, the hospital bills, prescriptions and transportation to. There are no caps or restrictions on the amount of medical liability economic damages that juries can award. Everything a patient is billed as a consequence of wrongdoing is an economic loss of doctors and hospitals are responsible for.

Non-economic damages for all the intangible costs that patents endure, such as pain and suffering or even the loss of relationships. In August of 2005, non-economic damages are limited to $ 500,000.00 against individual doctors and $ 1,000,000.00 against hospitals. Thus, an Illinois jury's decision for the total amount of damages owed to a patient is confined to the medical expenses in connection with the abuse, and a maximum of $ 1.5 million for non-economic damages.

Comparative Negligence in Illinois medical liability

Once a conclusion is reached on the amount of damages incurred by a patient, juries are asked moves from this injury, a certain percentage of the patient's own comparative fault. Damages may be deducted as much as 50%, but once a patient is to blame because more than half, for damages for the plaintiff, are completely removed.

The 50/50 comparative negligence test in Illinois only medical liability recovery against the doctors, if patients are 50% or less at fault. For example, if a patient from a hospital, and by a doctor not to for a week during the use of antibiotics, but ignored the instructions, crashes a car and is badly injured, a jury would probably find that, although the May antibiotic, caused the accident, the patient was more than 50% at fault for ignoring the instructions of the doctor, and thus, the opposite of the physician, the prescription.

On the other hand, in close cases, juries may find that the patients less than 50% at fault. In one recent case, a patient was rushed to a hospital for severe allergies, yet by his smoking habits. The patient died when the doctors of a dietary supplement with his hose, feeding, the milk, which he also allergic to. The jury found that the patient is 38% at fault, because it was possible that smoking in the patient's condition weakened, to his death. Since the patient is less than 50% at fault, the doctors were for the payment of the patient Estate proportion to their share of the debt, 62%.

The calculation of damages and comparative negligence as well as limitations, as the statute of limitations and requirements of expert testimony in relation to standard care helps juries at fair judgments in extremely difficult cases. The downside of this is extremely involved, that it is in long litigation, working for the last few years and the expensive legal fees. Nonetheless, the Illinois legal system is trying to strike an appropriate balance between protecting patients and doctors.

Emily Gleason is a law student at John Marshall in Chicago. For more information about Illinois medical malpractice law, please visit the http://www.findgreatlawyers.com//MedicalMalpractice.php, a leading source of referrals to Illinois medical malpractice lawyers and Illinois medical liability information.