the bar association phone number

what happens? you remember a phrase you learnedin law school? res ipsa loquitor: the thing speaks for itself. the document speaks foritself. the injury speaks for itself. can you use that legal doctrine to show that yourclient has a valid basis for a case? the answer is, yes you can. let me share with you aninteresting quirk. let's say for example, patient goes in to have surgery on his righthand. he comes out of surgery and he's got a third degree burn on his shoulder, in additionto the surgery they did on his hand. how could this have possibly happened? he had nothingto do with should surgery, this is a hand surgery problem. he comes out of the operatingroom with a third degree burn. was he under the control of the people in the operatingroom? absolutely. was he under anesthesia?

yes. could he have possibly contributed tothis injury by himself? no. but for the defendant's negligence, the doctor, the nursing staffnegligence, this injury would not have happened. first of all, can we use that argument? yes,we can use it in our pleading? do we need to bring in a medical expert to explain tothe jury that, "hey, if you go in for hand surgery, you shouldn't be coming out witha third degree to your shoulder."? the law says no. we don't need to bring in a medicalexpert to explain something so obvious to a jury. it's only where things become complicatedand the jury doesn't understand the medicine involved. i will tell you, here's a quirk,you will find that every experienced or good medical malpractice attorney who handles thesecases, will always bring in a medical expert,

even though they don't need to in this resipsa case. that's because we want the jury to understandwhy this injury occurred. we want the jury to understand what type of injury this gentlemanreceived. we want them to know how debilitating and what treatment he needed, in order tofix this problem. yes, the law does not require us to bring in an expert, where it's a resipsa case, but we can only use this argument and this claim, if the patient was under theexclusive care and control of the doctors in the operating room and the staff. the patientdidn't contribute whatsoever to this injury and but for the defendant's negligence, carelessness,this injury never would've occurred. that's another way that we can use that. when you'relistening to this person tell you about, "hey,

let me tell you about my tale of woe, whathappened. i went in for surgery and i wound up with some problem with my foot or to mybrain." whatever it is, you may be thinking, "hey, you might have a case here. you mightbe able to use res ipsa.", and that's important to know.