IS JUSTICE JUST?
SOMETIMES.
DOES THE BETTER TEAM WIN THE SUPERBOWL?
SOMETIMES.
When someone calls our office and it is clear to our attorneys that the medical care they received was negligent (meaning, below the standard of medical care one should receive), and as a result of this negligent care they suffered a serious injury, and money damages related to additional care, lost wages, etc., WE DO NOT GUARANTEE A SUCCESSFUL CASE OR RESULT.
Let me put it another way. Even when our office believes a Virginia Medical Malpractice Case exists, and should be pursued because all of the necessary legal elements exist under Virginia law, we cannot state for certain what will happen.
Filing a lawsuit is a little bit like gambling. And while I am not a gambler, I am a sports fan, so let’s imagine the SuperBowl this weekend and what folks will consider before placing a bet on the score.
They will consider player’s past performance, the coaches’ record, their strengths and weaknesses.
But what if the Broncos showed up on Sunday and they were assigned a different coach. What if Cam Newton had a bad day the day before and decided he didn’t want to play on Sunday. What if the game was being played in a blizzard? Some of these factors cannot be accounted for as you place your bet. Some of them are out of your control, and many, unpredictable.
A civil lawsuit in Virginia is not like the Super bowl. It is much more unpredictable, and the stakes are higher because they involve real people, whose lives have been forever changed by an act of negligence.
When you file a Virginia Medical Malpractice case,
- Sometimes the result of the case is decided by a jury, a group of strangers who only get to hear limited parts of your story and case.
- Sometimes the result of your case is decided by a judge, one man or woman who decides whether your case meets the legal standards required to file such a claim.
- Sometimes, the plaintiff gets to decide what happens and accepts or rejects a settlement offer. Sometimes the settlement offer is the idea of the insurance company who insures the doctor or hospital. Sometimes the doctor or hospital wants to settle.
- Sometimes the insurance company says – we don’t care what happened, we won’t settle your case.
And when you are injured, you don’t get to pick your judge, your jury, your defendant, or their insurance company, or even where the injury occurred. You have no idea what will happen along the way.
So while our office can say, yes you have a valid case, we cannot guarantee a win in court, or a settlement, or a favorable outcome. We can guarantee we will work as hard as we can on your case, to put it in the best position possible before a judge, jury, insurance carrier, etc. We will do everything we can to seek justice for our clients. And we can tell you that in our experience, more times than not, the system gets it right. The good guys get some kind of compensation in either a settlement, or a jury verdict.
So why do it? Because more often than not, our system does get it right.
The better team usually wins.
Valid cases are settled or payments are made as required by a judge a jury. Plaintiffs with valid Virginia civil cases most often see some form of justice. And when the system works, when an injured Virginia is paid for his or her injuries, their loss, their suffering, the system succeeds. And those days far outnumber the days when it doesn’t work.
And by the way – Go Panthers.