How Medical Malpractice Works in Louisiana

The Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act, LSA-R.S. 40:1231.1 et. seq., gives great protection from liability to a qualified health care provider as to the patient’s burden of proof against that health care provider and limits the liability of that health care provider to $100,000 plus interest and costs. Moreover, the maximum amount recoverable against all qualified health care providers to a patient for injuries or even death is $500,000, plus interest and costs, exclusive of future medical care and related benefits. This $500,000 cap applies even to any claim by the patient for past and future lost wages and loss of earning capacity, if applicable. For a qualified health care provider, and before a patient can bring a civil lawsuit (and absent binding arbitration), that patient must first bring a formal complaint before three (3) qualified health care providers qualified and appointed to a Medical Review Panel, who examine the care given and render an opinion of whether the accused health care provider did, in fact, breach the standard of care and if that breach of care resulted in injuries. One medical panelist is chosen by the patient and one panelist is chosen by the accused health care provider. The third and final panelist is chosen by the two other panelists. It can be an expensive and time-consuming process. Importantly, the formal written opinion of the Medical Review Panel is admissible in any subsequent civil lawsuit as evidence (although not conclusionary) of malpractice. Accordingly, a Medical Review Panel opinion that is favorable to you is ordinarily very helpful to you in securing a favorable outcome of the overall case for you.

How to Prove Malpractice

To prove medical malpractice, it must be shown that the accused health care provider committed an act or omission that falls below the appropriate standard of care ordinarily provided by other health care professionals, or put another way, that the accused health care provider failed to exercise the degree of skill and care ordinarily utilized by other members of his medical profession. There is a local standard for dentists and general practitioners so that when reviewing their care they are held to the standards prevailing in the same or a similar community or locale.  However, with specialists, they are held to a national standard or the ordinary standard for other members of their specialty in the United States.

Our Approach to Medical Malpractice

You will need an attorney who has the experience and ability: to secure the evidence to support or refute a medical malpractice claim; in the absence of another health care professional that has discovered the malpractice, select and retain a quality medical professional to examine the evidence and provide opinion on the issue of malpractice; and to thereafter present your case in the best light possible to the Medical Review Panel.   In his 32 years of practice, Tony Le Mon has successfully handled numerous medical malpractice cases securing favorable Medical Review Panel findings as well as favorable final outcomes for his clients. He has successfully represented a physician making a malpractice claim against another physician and as recently as 2015  (before taking his post with the District Attorney's Office for 3 years, 2015-2018) he has successfully proven malpractice involving the new technology of robotic surgery against a hospital’s chief of surgery.