Statute of Limitations(Texas)?

[ludano17]

Okay, thanks to the awesomeness of lawyers, my family has found itself in a very difficult situation. At the very end of November of 2009, my mother died in care at a hospital. In short, according to hospital code(written in hospital documents), she was supposed to be retrained as was not, and one night in the ICU(supposedly under 24/7 observation) she got out of her bed, high on dozens of medications, slipped and hit her head on the ground, creating two aneurisms her brain, she was pronounced brain dead a few days later. Negligence is obvious reading through the papers but the problem is:

We immediately intended to legally pursue the case, we got all necessary documents and sent them to a lawyer, who informed us he was going to "sit" on the case for several months before pursuing it. Well, after a over a year, we come home to all the documents sitting on our porch(UPS), the lawyer backed out for irrelevant reasons. Anyways, we find another lawyer, who does the exact same thing to us, no warning, no phone call, no nothing, apparently they wanted to pursue 'wrongful death' but decided it would be too hard and they weren't qualified for medical malpractice. Now I'm sitting at 1.5 months till the statute of limitations is up and I will be able to do NOTHING and I'm having hell finding a lawyer to even read the documents because we're so close to the limitations. I need legal advice, where should I go from here? Can I file paperwork personally before the limitations are up before finding a dedicated lawyer? The evidence is clear, the hospital never even billed our insurance for nearly 450,000$ in medical procedures, we even received personal apologizes from the hospital boards for the incident and written statements by neutral doctors explaining the depravity of the situation.

[garbhach65]

The first thing you need to do -- TODAY -- is file an extension that will preserve your rights and extend your statute by 90 days. For the life of me I can't remember what that form is called, but you can call a med/mal attorney to figure it out, or possibly even the clerk of the court. But you must do it right away, and you MUST do it before your statute expires.

The next thing you need to do is start calling attorneys and interviewing them. You want a big city attorney, not a podunkville nowhereland attorney; i.e., don't call for an attorney in Campbellton, call an attorney in Austin, or Dallas, or Houston, one of the really big cities that's near you.

You can either do a Google search for Medical Malpractice Attornyes, Austin, TX, or you can get into a website called Martindale-Hubble, which has a listing of all the attorneys in the United States. You can search by city, region, and specialty. And you want an attorney who does nothing but med/mal. Not a guy who does pesonal injury, including med/mal, but strictly med/mal. And Martindale-Hubbard will have what's called Super Attorneys, attorneys who are so good that that they're rated "super attorneys" by other attorneys, jurists, etc.

Don't call one attorney, call all of them. If you wind up leaving a message with one, call the next guy on the list. Tell them in advance that frist guy sat on your paperwork for nearly a year and that you don't have time for an appointment three weeks away. And any one of those attorneys will know the form I'm talking about and would most likely help you file it to help preserve your rights.

Now here's the kicker: Your illustrious governor got passed a little, tiny thing called "tort reform," making it almost impossible for you to sue doctors/hospitals in Texas, even if they killed your mother. People are finding out the hard way that what they thought they were voting for, "frivolous lawsuits," actually meant "all lawsuits." This might be why your paperwork was returned to you without further detail.

Nevertheless, you will need to talk to a dedicated med/mal lawyer to find out if you even can sue (tort reform,) and you definitely mention first guy who sat on your paperwork for nine months, all but letting your statute expire. There's also a little thing called "legal malpractice," and you may have a suit there.

Good luck.

[ashbey15]

I guess you have learned,never give a lawyer lead way in a case without constantly staying on top of them for your own protection. In the meantime this could have costs you the case. Find a medical malpractice lawyer who specializes in wrongful death cases. They usually will take your case without any money upfront and if the case wins they get paid from your settlement.