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Duty of Care
Once a doctor or health care professional agrees to diagnose or treat a patient, he or she has assumed a duty of care toward that patient.
Allodynia
When pain is caused by something that does not normally cause pain (such as clothing touching the skin).
Plaintiff
The party who initiates a legal action; in a personal injury lawsuit, the person who alleges that he or she has suffered monetary damages due the negligence of another party.
Miscarriage
When circumstances cause the mother's body to react to a problem in the pregnancy. This may cause bleeding, cramping, and will ultimately cause the loss of the pregnancy.
Delirium
A disturbance of the brain function that causes confusion and changes in alertness, attention, thinking and reasoning, memory, emotions, sleeping patterns and coordination.
Proximate Cause
Proximate cause is defined legally as a cause which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any intervening event, produces injury, and without which, the injury would not have occurred.
Joint-and-several liability
Liability in which each liable party is individually responsible for the entire obligation. Under joint-and-several liability, a plaintiff may choose to seek full damages from all, some, or any one of the parties alleged to have committed the injury.
Interrogatories
A form of discovery in which one party submits a series of written questions to the other party, and to which the latter is bound to answer under oath.
Comparative negligence
The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties.
Tort Liability
The defendant must owe a legal duty to the victim, the defendant breached that duty, the breach was the cause of an injury to the victim, there must be an injury. In most cases, there must be a physical or financial injury to the victim, but sometimes emotional distress, embarrassment, or dignitary harms are adequate for recovery.
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