What Happens If You Cannot Work Anymore Due To Medical Malpractice?

What happens if you cannot work anymore due to medical malpractice in Maryland? To put the question another way, does the law allow you to recover your past lost wages and possibly future wage loss when you are looking to bring a Maryland medical malpractice claim?

My purpose for spelling this issue out is because we have had some people in the past not understand how the law looks at work related “damages.” With that said, the simple answer is that in general you can recover your lost wages from the past (as long as the lost wages were due to the medical condition) and into the future, if warranted; but continue to read the below Maryland medical malpractice educational article to understand how the process works!

DAMAGES…THE LOST WAGES ARE A FORM OF DAMAGES

Under Maryland medical malpractice law, you have to have some sort of damages to be successful in cases like these. One reason being is that Maryland tort law, the foundation of medical malpractice law, says that you have to prove:

DUTY

BREACH OF DUTY

CAUSATION

DAMAGES

For the purpose of this article look at damages as the harm and injury done to you. Add to that, for this article we will talk about one type of damages, economic.

ECONOMIC DAMAGES

The easiest way to understand economic damages is to look at them as your actual out of pocket loss. So lost wages for example would be a form of economic damages. Because they are a type of economic damages Maryland law will allow you to recover the damages.

However, you must be able to prove not only that your lost wages are tied to the underlying medical malpractice action, you must have proof of your damages. In other words, you are going to have to show with documentation your loss. For example, check stubs, letters from your HR department, tax returns, licenses, etc…If you cannot prove your lost wages then they are just speculative, and you will not be able to recover speculative damages.