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to the Malpractice Information Page:
Please use this page to get answers
to your questions about malpractice cases. ://bda127.org
 Let me know if I can
answer any additional questions for you. I will look forward to hearing from you either by
email, telephone, or letter.
Richard
Noble
MEDICAL
MALPRACTICE
1. How do I find out if I
have a medical malpractice case?
Call me or email me and we can talk
about your problem. I can arrange for you to come to my office to
discuss your case.
2. What will we talk about
at your office?
I will ask you questions about what
happened. To find our specifically about what happened I need to
get the medical records. I will ask you to sign a medical
authorization form which I can send to the doctors and hospitals to get
the medical records.
3. Will my case be reviewed
by a doctor or nurse?
Yes. For me to
know whether you have a case that I can take I have to have the records
reviewed by an expert in the the type of medicine that is involved in
your case.
4. What has to be
proven in a medical malpractice case?
We
have to prove: (a) that the doctor or hospital screwed up the
case, (b) that the patient was damaged, and (c) that the
damage was caused by the very thing we claim was done wrong.
Most people when they think of malpractice only focus
on what the doctor did wrong, but often proof of causation is the
most difficult part of the case.
Here is an
example. In a failure to diagnose a breast cancer case imagine a
situation where the patient has a breast lump that looks like cancer on
a mammogram, and the doctor removes it in surgery but misses
the lump leaving the lump in. A year later the patient is
rechecked and found to have cancer that has spread outside the breast
area through the lymph system into the lungs. The case is hopeless
at that point.
It is clear that the doctor screwed up the case by
not removing the correct tissue. It would seem that this is a slam
dunk case. However, it may be when the case is analyzed by
experts in cancer, that the patient already had spread of cancer at the
time the original lump removal occurred, and that even if the
surgeon had done the job right, she would have died anyway because
she already would have had wide-spread cancer at that point. The
argument would be the wrongdoing didn't cause the damage because she was
already terminal at the time the wrongdoing occurred.
This type of argument sounds strange and unfair to
the average person, but it is successful in court.
My job is to sort out these issues with expert witnesses to
see if there are any defenses that would pose an insurmountable problem
to the case.
5. How long does a medical
malpractice case take?
It takes about 4 months to get
a case reviewed. If a case is filed in court it takes about 1 year
for the case to come to trial.
6. How long have you been
doing medical malpractice cases?
I
have been trying medical malpractice cases since 1982. I have been
involved in many major cases. My largest settlement was against
Kaiser for 2.1 million dollars in a case involving a baby who was
damaged at birth.
7. What does all this cost?
There is no attorney
fee unless I get money for you. The attorney fee would be
one-third of the net recovery. Your obligation is to pay for the
costs. At the outset the main costs are the charges by the doctors
and the hospitals for copying the medical records, and the charges
by the expert doctors who will review the cases. Have you ever
seen a doctor driving a junker? Probably not. The reason is
that they charge a lot of money for their services. This applies
as well to reviewing cases. It will cost about $1,500 to get your
case reviewed, and I will ask you to put up that amount or
something similar so that I will have money on hand to pay the experts
to review your case. That is the only way to determine if I can
take your case.
8. What if you don't
take my case?
It may be that after
I get the case reviewed I might decide that I can't take your
case. That doesn't mean you don't have a case. All it means
is that I don't think that I can be successful with it. Another
attorney may have a different slant on your case, and I would
encourage in that instance to have your case reviewed by another
attorney.
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Law Offices of
C.
Richard Noble, PC
C.
Richard Noble
2875 Marylhurst Dr.
West Linn, OR 97068
Phone: (503) 635-6235
Fax: (503) 635-6668
Richard Noble
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