When you are sick and in need of medical attention, you probably don't think twice before visiting a doctor or an emergency room. You trust that the medical professionals around you will do everything in their power to help and, if they cannot do anything further, will advise you on how best to proceed. Unfortunately, this just isn't always the case, and that's where medical malpractice claims come into play.

In California, medical malpractice claims are some of the hardest to win. Plaintiffs must have irrefutable evidence in order for their cases to be heard in court, but there's so much more that goes into a medical malpractice case than just evidence. Thinking about filing a medical malpractice suit in California? Let us give you a hand: …show more content…
Causation: Which actions directly led to your injuries and where they the doctor's? This is often called the "substantial factor."
Damages: How much should the defendant pay you in order to make up for your loss? This might include money for hospital bills, lost wages or even loss of life.

The goal of your evidence is to prove that your medical treater did not meet the standard of care, which is referred to as "using the level of knowledge, skill and care in diagnosis and treatment that other equally skilled and reasonable medical professionals would use in the same or similar circumstance.

This, however, is not an automatic win. The courts recognize that some errors are no one's fault; the patients are merely victims of chance. In cases where a doctor might prescribe one treatment and another turns out to be better, the doctor is not held responsible, providing the first treatment prescribed was a legitimate and accepted form of treatment.

You must also prove the substantial factor, which is defined by law as, "a factor that a reasonable person would consider to have contributed to the harm. It must be more than a remote or trivial factor. It does not have to be the only cause of the