Hughes & Coleman | Injury Law Blog

An epidural is most often associated with pain relief during labor and delivery.  However, epidurals are used to treat various forms of pain, including back pain, migraines, and post-surgical pain.  The epidural is administered by insertion of a needle between the vertebrae in the spine.  A high level of training and experience is necessary to avoid injuring the patient during the administration of this type of anesthesia.  Likewise, the patient must be positioned correctly, either bending forward at the waist and curving their back, or lying on their side and drawing their knees up toward their chin.  If the epidural is incorrectly administered, the results can include nerve damage, numbness and tingling in the legs and/or feet, pain in the back, lower abdomen, or lower extremities, and in extreme cases, paralysis. 

If you or a loved one has suffered an injury due to a doctor’s negligence or carelessness in administering an epidural, you may have the right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.  A medical malpractice attorney can evaluate your claim.

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For the majority of people who experience lower back pain, the cause is nothing major – perhaps a muscle strain, or lifting something too heavy.  However, back pain can often be a symptom of or disguise a more serious issue, and merely providing the patient pain relief will not address the problem.  For instance, lower back pain can be a symptom of a kidney stone, but if misdiagnosed as a pulled muscle or merely a strain, the result could ultimately be infection, emergency surgery, hospitalization, and even kidney damage.  Lower back pain can also disguise symptoms of urinary tract infections, spinal cord tumors, herniated discs, and even, in rare cases, leukemia.  Prompt and accurate diagnosis is key to the treatment of the true cause of lower back pain. 

If you or a loved one has suffered an injury due to a doctor’s negligence or carelessness in misdiagnosing lower back pain, you may have the right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.  A medical malpractice attorney can evaluate your claim.

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Legal malpractice occurs when an attorney is negligent when providing legal advice or representation.  Examples of legal malpractice include an attorney stealing money to be held in trust for a client, missing a statute of limitations deadline, or not providing the proper and available evidence at trial.  To prove a legal malpractice claim, a client must show that there was an attorney-client relationship, that the legal representation provided by the attorney was negligent, that the negligent representation did in fact cause the client to be injured/damaged, and the extent of the client’s injury. 

Legal malpractice claims are complex and often difficult to prove. If you or a loved one has suffered an injury due to negligent representation by an attorney, you may have the right to file a legal malpractice lawsuit.  A legal malpractice attorney can evaluate your claim.

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Loss of consortium damages are for the spouse of the injured party.  They consist of the reasonable value of the medical care, services and supplies reasonably required and actually given in treatment of the spouse; the expenses reasonably incurred in attending the spouse at the hospital; the reasonable value of the injured spouse’s services the plaintiff has lost; and the reasonable value of a spouse’s companionship and acts of love and affection that has been lost but would have been received in the usual course of the parties married life.  As you can imagine, these can often be very personal and would require disclosure of some very intimate and sensitive information.  Accordingly, we recommend that these only be sought in cases that are extreme in their nature.

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Not everyone will have future medical expenses.  Even those with permanent injuries sometimes do not have future medical expenses.  Proving the need for and cost of future medical expenses depends on the opinion of your physician(s), within a reasonable medical probability, as to the nature, frequency and cost of your future medical needs that are more likely than not to be required for your care.  Often, your physician will state your future expenses in the form of an estimated annual cost or in the form an anticipated surgical procedure plus an annual cost. 

Your attorney will take this figure and multiply it by your remaining life expectancy.   If your physician assesses you with no permanent impairment or otherwise expresses the opinion that you will have no significant future medical expenses then, depending on the nature of your injuries, your attorney may choose to obtain an independent medical examination.  Your attorney may also choose to obtain an independent medical examination for the purpose of reinforcing an opinion expressed by your physician.  It is important that you work with your attorney to understand whether you have a case that includes future medical expenses and how to go about establishing that element of your damages.

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