If you or someone in your life has experienced a birth injury, the period following this event can be challenging and sensitive. However, if you decide to look into hiring a birth injury lawyer to fight on your behalf, it’s important to make sure you find a birth injury lawyer whom you can trust and who will help you understand the ins and outs of filing a claim on the grounds of birth injury.
Here is a guide to the essential facts and concepts that should be understood about pursuing birth injury litigation so you can make an informed decision about whether to file a claim.
What is a birth injury?
Regardless of how serious they might seem at the outset; a birth injury can be a very grave outcome of delivery. Types of birth injuries can range from a bruise or laceration on the child to more severe conditions such as cerebral palsy.
Depending on the context, birth injuries can be attributed to medical malpractice if there is some evidence that any of the doctors or medical professionals involved in the birth process made a careless mistake that could have led to the occurrence of the specific injury.
Disproving a birth injury suit
If you hire a birth injury lawyer and take the defendant to court, the legal counsel of the defendant will most likely attempt to argue the injury that occurred was not, in fact, a birth injury, but instead was a birth defect.
A birth defect means the child was genetically predisposed to contract the specific condition that is now present, whereas a birth injury implies that fault for the injury of what would have been an otherwise healthy infant rests with the medical professionals who assisted with the birth in some capacity.
Employing a birth injury lawyer when pursuing litigation for a birth injury is advantageous because an experienced attorney can use their skills and experience to understand precedent and gather evidence to help you win your case.
How does suing for birth injury help?
Many parents whose children have suffered from birth injuries are skeptical about filing a legal claim. Some feel that the added stress of dealing with a lawsuit is too much on top of having to take care of their injured newborn. Medical appointments, therapy, and general care for an injured child can take up a great deal of time.
However, an experienced birth lawyer is skilled in making sure the whole litigation process is as stress-free for parents as possible and ensuring that parents will have all the time, they need to devote to taking care of their child while still being able to fight for rightful compensation for their troubles.
If the birth injury lawyer wins the suit against the defendants, the compensation won can be used to cover a number of expenses. These might include medical costs from the past, present, and future, costs associated with rehabilitation, therapy, specialized medical equipment, and counseling, compensation for suffering, pain, and emotional distress on behalf of the family, lost wages due to parents’ absence at work because they needed to take care of the child, and compensation for loss of companionship or enjoyment.
Larger scale prevention
If your family wins a birth injury negligence case, not only can it help you, your child, and your family, but can also make the path of birth injury litigation easier for families who experience a similar situation after you. More precedent makes for easier legal cases, which can lead to less prolonged legal proceedings and quicker justice and peace of mind for families.
Final thoughts
If you are debating filing a birth injury claim with a birth injury attorney, consider that you might not only be making life easier for your own family but also potentially could be making life easier for countless others.
