Why Didn’t You Take My Medical Malpractice Case?

We understand that the people who come to us may be coping with severe injuries and illnesses, the loss of a loved one, and financial difficulties.  Our goal is to provide you with our honest assessment of your case. Unfortunately, Indiana medical malpractice laws are complicated and these cases are very difficult to prove and win. Although every case we evaluate is unique, here are some of the common reasons we do not take cases: 

We Don’t Think Your Case Will Meet the Threshold for Medical Malpractice

In medical malpractice cases, we have to prove that negligence on the part of your health care provider led to substandard treatment and the negligent treatment resulted in significant harm. This could include a medication mistake, a missed diagnosis, and other medical errors. However, it’s important to understand that not all errors are considered malpractice.   A bad outcome does not necessarily mean that your injury was the result of negligence.  Your complication may be considered an accepted “risk of the procedure”.  Also, if other medical professionals in the same position would have made the same decision, then you likely don’t have a medical malpractice claim.

The Statute of Limitations Has Passed

The Amount of Damages You Are Seeking Is Very Low or Hard to Prove

Our attorneys work extremely hard to fight for the rights of medical malpractice victims. However, we do advance all the costs of handling these cases, including the cost to have medical professionals review your medical records and the costs to hire expert witnesses. Since we accept cases on a contingent fee basis, we do not get paid unless we recover compensation for you.  Additionally, medical malpractice claims take 1-3 years to make it through the medical review panel process and another 1-2 years after that to proceed in court.  Those factors require us to be very selective about the cases we accept. We are sympathetic to those who may have suffered a malpractice injury and are facing relatively minor bills or have experienced a full recovery, but we have found that it is not cost effective to pursue cases for minor damages because of the significant time and expense involved in preparing them.   There are other instances where it is too difficult to prove what damages you may have suffered from the  medical condition for which you originally sought medical care and what damages were the result of any medical negligence.  The law requires us to prove that the outcome more likely than not would have been different and that can be difficult to prove in some cases.