Here are some random ideas regarding argument points in a medical malpractice case for your consideration.
1.When a patient puts their life in hands of a doctor they have right to trust and rely upon getting the best care possible.
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2.When any question of human safety is involved, the policy ought to be: “if there is any doubt don’t take medical chances. Always patient safety first.
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3.A fence at top of cliff is a lot better than an ambulance waiting below. The best rule of medicine is that it is ‘better to be safe than sorry.
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Malpractice Lawsuits
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1.When you have the nerve to sue doctors they hire the very best lawyers and have available experts who will back them.
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2.Hospitals are places you go to get well and not places where you expect to have mistaken made costing you your health. When they fail in their duty, they should accept personal responsibility and not force lawsuits they fight.
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3.The real defense they have offered is “ We may have injured her, but we did it very
carefully”
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4.Medicine cloaks itself with big words and complicated excuses for its wrong doing to confuse and keep the common person from doing anything about it.
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5.Medicine believes “the king can do no wrong.” It creates its own foreign language. It makes its own rules. When one of its professions is sued for negligence, the others rally
Around.
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6.In all the years of representing people in medical cases I’ve never heard a doctor say:
“I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I was wrong.“ Even if they operate on the wrong leg, patient they always have an excuse and an expert ready to testify for them.
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7.It’s always the “three dog bite defense” (1) the dog was chained so you must have gotten too close (2) the dog doesn’t have any teeth and (3) besides, I don’t even own a dog
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8.As to the medical records the doctor relies on, remember doctors make the records and the patients don’t a chance to insert their version into their records. Besides, records of an event are made after it happens, when the doctor knows it happened and write their own version.
9.It’s up to juries to keep medicine honest. Juries have the power to not allow medicine to be a privileged class above the law. or the
common people will suffer bad medical care
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10.You and I have the right to expect a medical hospital to have a higher duty of care to people then a hotel or a department store. If there was ever a time a person should be able to assume they can trust the facility and the people who run it is when they are a patient in a hospital and in the hands of a doctor.
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11.If doctor or hospital not prepared to treat you correctly they should not admit you and take your money. When they admit you and take your money they represent they are holding themselves as out as competent. They are saying: “don’t worry. you are safe here and we will take good care of you.“
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Doctors and Hospitals are Not Above the Law
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1.In the movie “Verdict: Paul Newman says it well to the jury when he tells them:
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“There is no justice in our system for the common man. The rich win, the poor lose. The poor are powerless. They are the victims of the system. We doubt the law. We doubt the system of justice. But today, you are the law. all twelve of you. Not some book. Not some lawyer. Not even some judge or legislature. Today, you are the law.”
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2.It is not only right, but fair and proper to say to a doctor: “we love you. We think you are a good doctor, but in this one case you made a mistake and someone was injured as result. You are as much accountable for your professional mistakes as I am in driving my car. When you drive through a ‘medical red light’ and injure someone you must accept responsibility just like anyone else. When you refuse to acknowledge your
mistakes we must do it for you.
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3.We have the right to trust our doctors. It’s like flying in airplane. We don’t have to check on qualifications of the pilot, check the tires or instruments. We have the
right to ”trust the pilot is trained to fly with an ear on sound of the engines and an eye on the instruments. The slightest change in the pitch of the engine or movement of a gauge alerts him to a possible problem. Because of the enormous responsibility for
human life, the pilot is always alert for any warning signs.
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4.This defendant has refused to admit any responsibility at all for what happened. They deny any duty and deny any obligation owed. they offer inconsistent and improbable
excuses through experts who disagree with each other. We had to prove our case through reluctant witnesses we had to subpoena here
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Jury Objective Verdict
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1.If there is anyone on this jury who is saying to themselves suing doctors is wrong. I’m serving on this jury to make sure a verdict is brought in for the doctor. Or if there is anyone who is saying to themselves: “I feel sorry for this doctor. I don’t care about the
law and the evidence. I‘m going to vote for the doctor because I feel sorry for him. If such a person is sitting here on this jury ,then their time here has been wasted and they live the rest of their life with the knowledge that they violated their oath as a juror and committed an injusitice. And the same is true of any juror whose verdict is based upon sympathy. A verdict on the basis of sympathy is no different than a verdict based upon bias.
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2.But, you can do the courageous thing. you can say: this isn’t easy. I wish I weren’t here. I feel sorry for the doctors, but I am a judge of the facts. I have taken an oath to do the right thing on the basis of evidence and without regard to any bias or sympathy I might feel for the doctor. I‘ve sworn to do my duty and I‘m going to do it no matter how hard it is because I want to be proud of my verdict. I’m not taking the easy way out I‘m not going to listen to any pleas of sympathy for the doctor or bias against the plaintiff. My vote is not for sale on that basis. Unless each and every one of you is prepared to say that
to yourselves, your time here has been wasted and your jury service a mockery. you will do a lifetime of injustice by your verdict. You will have done nothing you can look back upon with pride and everything to be ashamed of. But I know you won’t do that. I know that you will do justice no matter what the personal cost to you might be
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