Compensation Available in Defective Medical Device Cases
Compensation can involve thinks like medical expenses. For example, if there’s a defective knee replacement hardware and you had to have the hardware taken out and new hardware put in and you had to go through the expense of a knee replacement surgery again, those expenses are recoverable. In that same scenario, if you lost time from work, your lost wages are recoverable.
If you’re left with intangible damages like pain and suffering, inconvenience, loss of the capacity for the enjoyment of life, mental anguish, those are also things that you can recover in a medical device case. Damages will differ from client to client depending upon your circumstances. Generally speaking, though, those are the things that you can claim in a case like that. If you have a defective medical device case or a defective drug case, medication type case that’s occurred in Duval County or Nassau County or any of the surrounding areas, give us a call. We’ll sit down and talk about the ins and outs and formulate a plan on how to help you the best.
Liability in a Defective Medical Device Case
the most obvious one is the manufacturer. There are other potential responsible parties but the manufacturer probably hits the list depending upon the defective nature of the product. In Florida, can you sue the manufacturer of a defective medical device? The answer is yes.
Defective Medical Device Statute of Limitations
In Florida, the statute of limitations is four years from the date that you either actually knew or suspected the device has caused your injury. There’s another statute involved, but four years typically is the statute that applies in those kinds of cases. If you have a case like that and you think that the medical device or such has caused the problem, contact us immediately if it’s happened in Duval County, or Nassau County, or any of the surrounding areas. They are complicated cases. They take a lot of time to develop. Please call immediately when you recognize that there may have been a problem with a device.
Defective Medical Device Insurance Investigation
When clients come in, sometimes they’ve been contacted by the insurance company for the manufacturer of the medical device or one of the other parties whose hands have touched the medical device. They want to know whether they should talk to them. Without fail, without exception, never talk to the insurance company. They do not have your interest at heart. They have their own interest of their insured, the maker of the device or any component part of the device. They want to get information that’s going to help and protect their insured, not you. Tell them that you’re represented by us and give them our contact information.
Once they know that it is illegal for them to talk to you directly, they will call us and then we will begin the process of conversation back and forth through our office. You get out of the process, which is the best place for you to be.
Dealing Directly With The Maker of a Defective Medical Device
People often ask us if they should deal directly with the manufacturer when they think they’ve been hurt by a defective medical device. Indeed, this is one area where manufacturers are very proactive, depending upon the medical device. They keep track of where their devices are and, if they begin to get reports of damages across the country or in regions where their product has been distributed, they will reach out and try to attain those devices and get them in their hands. You should not deal directly with them. They do not have your interest at heart. They have their own interest in protecting themselves. If you get a call from a manufacturer who wants to talk to you about the medical device, you politely but firmly put them off. You call a lawyer right away.
Defective Medical Device Claims For a Deceased Family Member
It is a form of a wrongful death claim governed by the laws in the state of Florida. If that device caused the death of your loved one, you have the legal ability to file a claim. Now, having said that, these are complicated cases. They need to be looked at with a critical eye. Yes, you have the legal ability to file a wrongful death action due to a medical device killing your loved one, but the details need to be looked at closely to make sure that the merits of the case can justify filing the case.
Initial Offer For a Defective Medical Device Case
Eventually, when we are representing someone who’s been hurt by a medical device in northeast Florida, if there is merit to the case, we will get a settlement offer. Whether or not we will accept that offer depends on several different considerations. If it is the first offer, we probably will not be accepting that offer. If we get into settlement negotiations, our job is to get the best offer on the table so that we can discuss it to see if we think it’s fair versus rejecting it and going to trial and try your case.
Whether we’re going to accept that offer depends on several different things, but you’ll have us at your side. The bottom-line decision will be yours to make but it will come with a recommendation from us based on our experience.
Choosing The Right Defective Medical Device Attorney
We are often asked how people should go about getting the right lawyer for a case in a medical device situation. We always advise, without exception, to get one that’s got experience. These are not easy cases. These are not inexpensive cases. These are complicated cases. These are not cases for young lawyers who have never handled them before or never been inside a court room before. These are for experienced lawyers. We’ve been in practice 38 years and have seen a lot of different medical device cases come into our office. If you have a medical device case, number one consideration is experience. Experience not only in terms of years but in terms of handling medical device cases.
Defective Medical Device Attorney Fees
If you think you have been injured as a result of a defective medical device, such as hardware that goes into a knee replacement, for example, you’ve got four years to make your claim. Having said that, do not wait, particularly in a medical device case where a device has been implanted in your body and you have to have surgery to take it out. It’s very important that we preserve the device because it will have to be examined by someone to determine whether it’s defective. There are other reasons for getting in touch with an attorney immediately. Witnesses go away. Other types of evidence disappear. Memory fades. Although, yeah, you’ve got four years, but if you think you’ve suffered a loss because of a defective medical device, contact our office immediately so that we can do part of what we’re hired to do and that’s preserve evidence.
Defective Medical Device Class Action Claim
Most people have heard of class actions but they don’t really know what a class action is. A class action is simply a collection of people who have been hurt, for example, with a medical device. There have been class actions brought where their injury is a result, the mechanism of injury is the same and a lot of similarities. There are some complexities to whether a class action suit will survive. If there is one, many times it involves defective devices. There have been class actions and other similar actions like multidistrict litigation where there has been a defective device put on the market. There have been many knee replacement devices and shoulder devices that have been bad and lots of lawsuits were filed— some of them as class actions, others as actions that were collected in one or directed to be collected in one particular federal district where one judge can manage the cases. Many times your medical device case will end up in one of those two collections of cases. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but those are things that we go over with.
Defective Medical Device Case Value
People who have suffered a loss from what they think was a defective medical device ask me how much their case worth is. It’s a fair question. It’s also a question that we don’t answer immediately because several things go into putting a value range on a case. Many times it takes a long time because we have to determine whether a device is defective and that is not as simple as it sounds. That can take a very long time to determine. Once we do that, we factor that into other aspects of your case— your medical bills, what kind of disability you’ve had from the medical device, those types of things. Putting a value on the case, eventually we do, but it takes time.
Defective Medical Device Available Damages
People often ask what damages we can collect. In Florida, there are several elements of damages. Some of them are pretty obvious. If you’ve suffered medical bills, medical expenses, as a result of the medical device, you can claim those. If you’ve lost time from work connected with the medical device going bad, you can collect those things. You can collect what are known as general damages or intangible damages. Those are things, some of which you have probably heard of, including pain and suffering, as well as others that you’re perhaps not quite as familiar with, such as inconvenience, loss of the capacity for the enjoyment of life, or mental anguish. If you have suffered all of these losses in the future, you get to claim those as well. Those are some of the things that you can collect and those are the things that we look at in valuating your case.
Did you or a loved one experience an unreasonably dangerous medical device? Check out these 12 Defective Medical Device Case Tips. Then contact us today.