Best Medical Malpractice Attorney in Lansing
Medical professionals train for years to practice medicine. When you seek reasonable care as a patient, you trust their education, training, and experience and follow their advice. Unfortunately, medical professionals often make mistakes that can end in serious illness, injury, or death.
Medical malpractice causes between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths per year. Medical mistakes that cause serious harm occur 10-20 times more often than fatal errors and can result in life-altering consequences like brain damage, loss of income, and loss of enjoyment of life.
The medical malpractice attorneys with Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. help medical malpractice victims get the justice they deserve. If you were injured at the hands of a doctor or hospital staff in East Lansing due to negligence, we can hold them accountable and seek a fair settlement on your behalf. Our law firm stands up for the victim’s rights and can ensure you are supported during your case.
Do I Have a Medical Malpractice Case?
To succeed in your case, you need to work with an experienced medical malpractice attorney. Getting help from one of our medical malpractice attorneys can allow you to focus on your recovery.
Our senior partner, Eileen Kroll, can work with you if you have a medical malpractice case. Eileen’s extensive experience in medical and legal malpractice law provides her with a wide range of knowledge in medical malpractice litigation, including birth injury litigation, emergency medicine, and critical care.
She is also a member of the Birth Trauma Litigation and Medical Negligence groups within the American Association for Justice (AAJ). By using her knowledge, experience, and commitment to working with each individual personally, she can work hard for your right to financial compensation.
Legal Issues in Malpractice Cases
Your attorney can prepare your case efficiently according to Michigan law. A medical malpractice lawsuit in Michigan requires an independent health care professional to review medical records and state that enough evidence exists to proceed.
Michigan doesn’t limit the economic damages you can collect in medical malpractice claims, but it limits non-economic damages to $497,000 as of 2022. To qualify for the higher non-economic damage cap of $887,500, your legal representation must prove that you lost the functional use of one or more limbs, have a permanent cognitive deficit that affects your ability to make independent decisions, or lost your ability to reproduce.
Types of Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice includes actions or omissions that deviate from the widely accepted standard of care for practitioners in the same field and cause injury or illness to the patient. Physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants, and other medical professionals involved in patient care can commit malpractice.
Common types of malpractice that may happen in Lansing include:
Birth Injury
Causes of birth injury include failure to respond to fetal disease, failure to respond to bleeding, misuse of forceps or a vacuum extractor, poor care after birth, failure to anticipate birth complications or delay of a necessary cesarean section.
These mistakes can cause conditions like cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, nerve damage to the face or arms, bleeding in the brain, and hypoxic brain injury caused by lack of blood flow. These conditions can affect the mental and physical abilities of your child.
A child injured at birth faces horrific consequences that can last a lifetime. This injury places a financial and emotional burden on families and the child. The family should receive appropriate medical intervention and justice through the civil court system.
Paralysis
Living with paralysis changes how you live your life radically, often resulting in chronic pain and needing regular medical care. Paralyzed patients need help with many tasks and rely on the health care workers for everything during their hospital stay. During a busy shift, hospital employees might overlook the needs of a paralyzed patient or fail to communicate with each other about the patient’s needs. This can result in neglect, such as hospital infections and bedsores.
Emergency Room Negligence
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires emergency department staff to evaluate, stabilize, and treat medical emergencies, regardless of the patient’s insurance status or ability to pay.
However, the chaotic and stressful ER environment contributes to emergency room errors. Misdiagnosis, medication errors, and communication failures result in most ER malpractice claims.
A medical mistake in the emergency department can cause hypoxic brain injury when medical personnel fails to detect and treat internal bleeding. It can lead to spinal cord injury when they fail to notice and protect against spinal fractures and death when they misdiagnose a patient and send them home without treatment.
Surgical Errors
In the U.S., more than 400,000 surgical errors happen each year. These medical errors include operating in the wrong place, accidental lacerations caused by surgical robots, and anesthesia errors. Negligence can occur when a patient is discharged shortly after surgery without adequate post-surgery care and suffers an injury as a result.
Physician and Nurse Negligence
Doctors and nurses have a duty of care to provide medical care equal to or superior to what any reasonable medical professional with the same training would do in similar circumstances. This conduct is referred to as the acceptable standard of care.
Medical negligence can happen in hospitals, clinics, labs, and pharmacies. The failure of a doctor to diagnose your cancer could qualify. The pharmacist giving you the wrong dosage of medication could be eligible.
Most patients who suffer the consequences of medical mistakes may not be aware of their rights to compensation. If you suffer negligent care under a health care professional, consult the medical malpractice attorneys at Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. to examine your case.
Hospital Malpractice
When the health care facility’s human resources department fails to validate a potential health care worker’s background and skill set, they might hire under-skilled staff that can’t safely perform the job they are hired to do. They might also hire criminals with a previous history of abusing patients.
Health care facilities also fail to maintain safe staffing ratios, so patients may not receive the level of care their conditions require. They may not maintain or repair necessary equipment or run out of needed medications.
Wrongful Death
Michigan considers wrongful death as a death or injury that leads to death caused by negligence or misconduct. The deceased’s family must appoint a personal representative to hire and communicate with a personal injury attorney.
These types of medical malpractice are only a fraction of the potential harm that medical staff can cause. You need a medical malpractice lawyer to explain your legal options and file a medical malpractice lawsuit to receive compensation for your financial losses.
Proving Negligence
Building a successful medical malpractice claim involves three elements. First, you must prove that you had established a professional relationship with the defendant. Second, you need to show that the defendant breached the standard of care. Finally, you must demonstrate that the breach caused the injury or harm you suffered.
The legal services of an experienced attorney can build such a case by engaging a wide range of medical experts to review your medical documents. We can negotiate with the insurance company to reach a fair medical malpractice settlement covering your damages, including follow-up care.
Our Experienced Lawyers Can Help
Our legal experts have extensive experience with medical malpractice injuries. The medical malpractice attorneys at Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. help you hold hospital staff and other medical providers responsible for their mistakes. We want to help you hold your negligent health care professionals accountable for the harm they have caused you.
One of our medical malpractice attorneys can take your case to court if the insurance company refuses to offer a fair settlement. Our network of medical expert witnesses can show a jury how the negligent actions of medical personnel led to your injury.
Our contingency fee basis means we only get paid if we win your case, so there is no financial risk to you to get started. Call our law firm today at and schedule your no-obligation, free case evaluation.