Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice occurs when a physician fails to treat a medical condition properly and the negligent act or omission causes additional or aggravated injury to the patient. It also includes problems with nursing care, medications or sanitation. These cases can come from wrong diagnoses, bad surgical technique or bad communication between medical providers.

By their nature, medical malpractice cases are complex, expensive and risky. It's important to have an experienced medical malpractice attorney who can understand the medicine and navigate the ins and outs of this difficult area.

If you believe you have a claim, seek advice from an experienced medical malpractice attorney who can help you determine the validity of your claim and how to determine the next steps you should take.

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Q What is medical malpractice?

A Medical malpractice is when a medical professional doesn’t follow the “standard of care” for their profession, and hurts someone as a result. If a professional doesn’t do what a reasonable professional would in the same circumstances, there might be a case. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the doctor or nurse or whoever has to get everything right. Sometimes procedures don’t always go well, even though the professionals took all proper precautions. If that happens, there isn’t a case. Either way, it typically takes a thorough review of the medical records by a licensed physician before we know for sure.

Q Why do you sue doctors and nurses?

A Everyone should be held accountable for their mistakes. We love people in the health care profession – one of our partners is even married to a nurse – but when they mess up, the results are often very tragic. We’ve seen wrong site operations, botched surgeries, wrong medications, missed diagnoses and many other medical errors kill people and change people’s lives forever. Doctors should not be given a free pass to hurt and kill people. What we do helps make medical care better for everyone.

Q What is my case worth?

A Each case depends on its own facts. Anyone who hears a little bit about your case and tells you what it’s worth doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The value of each case depends on many things – liability (whose fault was it), the severity of the injury, the amount of monetary damages (medical bills, lost wages, etc), the permanency of the injury, and many other things. With personal injury and medical malpractice cases, it can be difficult to predict what a jury would do. When we accept a case, we will let you know once the case is ready for potential settlement what we think a reasonable verdict range is, and then we will help you decide whether to settle the case or take it to trial.

Q How long will my case take?

A Each case is different. Some cases come into our office and are resolved in a few weeks – some take several years. Again, this depends on the nature of the case and severity of the injuries. In many cases we want to wait until you heal up before we try to get the case resolved. In other cases, that simply isn’t possible. We pursue all of our cases diligently – we want to get them done for you quickly and efficiently – but we don’t sacrifice quality to get them done fast.

Q Will I need money up front?

A In most cases, we don’t charge money up front. We typically work on a contingent fee – meaning that we get a percentage of whatever we get you. When we do that, we don’t charge you if we lose the case. We also don’t make you pay for case costs along the way. If we win or settle, those costs come out of your settlement. If we lose, you don’t owe us anything for costs. In some cases, we charge an hourly rate – usually because the case hopefully won’t take a lot of time and it would be unfair for us to charge a percentage of a relatively easily recovery. Either way, we discuss all fee issues with you up front before you sign up with us.

Q Do you do free consultations?

A We will talk to you about your case on the phone to see if we can help you. We won’t give you legal advice or tell you what to do when you first call us because we frankly won’t know enough about the case to give you the type of advice you deserve. If you come in to meet with us, you don’t owe us anything for the initial visit.

Q Do I need an attorney? If so, why Warner?

A In any serious case, it’s usually a good idea to have an attorney. Of course, we turn down cases nearly every day where we can’t help the person. Why do we do that? Because if we took those cases, the client wouldn’t be happy and we wouldn’t be happy (and frankly probably wouldn’t make any money). Call us, and we will do our best to tell you if you need an attorney. As for why you should pick us? We believe our bios and our success record speak for themselves.

Q Someone said I should pick a Chicago attorney. Is that true?

A No. While there are some great lawyers in Chicago, there are great lawyers right here in the Quad Cities. Look at our resumes and speak with us before you call someone from out of the area. We think you’ll find that we have the experience, skills, and personal touch you are looking for.

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