Knoxville Medical Malpractice Attorney
If you need help with a personal or business legal matter in Knoxville, Tennessee, Atkins Brezina, PLLC, is here for you with practical legal advice and professional representation to resolve your matter in or out of court. Atkins Brezina, PLLC, is a full-service, general practice Knoxville law firm with a focus on medical malpractice, personal injury, and business and commercial law and litigation. Whether you need the advice of trusted counsel on a confidential matter, technical assistance to guide you through a business transaction, or aggressive and effective representation to achieve your goals in a legal dispute, Atkins Brezina, PLLC, in Knoxville is the right choice to meet your needs.
Hometown Roots and Legal Experience
The firm’s founder and principal attorney, E. Michael Brezina, III, is a long-time Knoxville resident with over 15 years of legal experience. For most of his legal career, Michael was a highly-rated top defense lawyer. Now at his own firm, Michael uses the skills and knowledge he gained from working on the defense side to help injured plaintiffs get the care and compensation they need. With his inside knowledge of how insurance companies evaluate, litigate, defend and settle claims, Michael is perfectly positioned to protect your rights, see that you are treated fairly, and achieve the results you deserve. Call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, for help with your Knoxville legal matter.
Expertise in Knoxville Medical Malpractice Cases
Atkins Brezina, PLLC, has particular expertise in the field of medical malpractice, including hospital malpractice, nursing home malpractice and other Tennessee health care liability actions. These cases are factually and legally complex and require a great deal of effort and attention to resolve. The medical field is highly specialized and technical, and it takes special skill to understand the applicable Standard of Care in a medical setting and determine whether a patient’s harm resulted from a medical provider’s failure to meet that reasonable standard.
Knoville medical malpractice attorney Michael Brezina works closely with J. Tucker Montgomery, JD, MD, an attorney and Physician who is one of the region’s most highly respected and experienced attorneys handling Tennessee health care liability claims. Michael often consults Dr. Montgomery to help assess and work up potential health care liability claims. From surgical errors to misdiagnosis to lack of informed consent or malpractice, Atkins Brezina, PLLC, is ready to take on the negligent doctor or hospital that caused harm to you or your family.
Tennessee Medical Malpractice FAQs
Your questions answered by a knowledgeable and experienced East Tennessee medical malpractice plaintiff’s lawyer
Below are answers to some frequently asked questions we hear at Atkins Brezina, PLLC, as we help patients and the families of patients who were injured or killed due to medical negligence in Knoxville or East Tennessee. If you have other questions or need immediate assistance with a health care liability claim, please call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, at 865-500-3121. Your call is free, and we won’t charge any fee until after we are successful in your case.
Q. What does it take to be a medical “expert” in Tennessee medical malpractice cases?
To qualify as a medical expert witness in Tennessee, your witness must:
- Hold a medical license in Tennessee or a bordering state;
- Be licensed in a profession or specialty area which makes the expert’s testimony relevant to the case at hand; and
- Be licensed during the year preceding the date when the injury or negligence occurred.
The court can waive these requirements if the appropriate witness would otherwise not be available. At Atkins Brezina, PLLC, we work with a network of medical experts in many fields. In addition, attorney Michael Brezina works closely with highly respected physician and attorney, Dr. Tucker Montgomery, in many medical malpractice cases.
Q. What kinds of compensation can I recover for medical malpractice?
A. Financial compensation for an injury, known in the law as “compensatory damages,” includes both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages are actual economic losses incurred by the injured patient. These include the costs of reasonable and necessary medical care to deal with the harm done, rehabilitation services, custodial care if the negligence caused long-term or permanent disability, loss of services, loss of earned income and loss of earning capacity.
Non-economic damages refer to compensation for harm, such as the victim’s pain and suffering, scarring or disfigurement, disability, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of consortium (intimate marital relations) due to the injury inflicted by the doctor or hospital. Non-economic damages are capped in Tennessee at $750,000, or $1 million if the injury was catastrophic. These limits don’t apply if the malpractice was intentional or resulted from the medical provider’s intoxication by alcohol or drugs, or if the doctor or hospital tried to hide their mistakes from the patient.
Q. Can I get punitive damages for medical malpractice?
A. As opposed to compensatory damages which are meant to compensate you for the harm done to you, punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for especially bad behavior. In Tennessee, punitive damages are limited to cases where the defendant acted recklessly, knowingly, maliciously, or intentionally. In addition, your case for punitive damages has to be proven by “clear and convincing evidence,” which is harder to prove than your case for compensatory damages, which only needs to be proven by a “preponderance of the evidence.”
Punitive damages are hard to prove in most personal injury cases, and they are especially rare in medical malpractice cases. Examples of conduct that might justify punitive damages include a doctor who performs surgery while intoxicated, a doctor who performs an operation that the doctor knows he or she is incompetent to perform, or a doctor who performs an unnecessary surgery with the intent to defraud insurance or Medicare.
Tennessee law places a cap on punitive damages at the greater of $500,000 or double the amount of compensatory damages awarded. This cap has been held unconstitutional by a Federal Court interpreting Tennessee law, but the Tennessee Supreme Court has not directly ruled on the matter, so the constitutionality of the punitive damages cap in Tennessee remains unclear.
Q. How long do I have to file a medical malpractice claim?
A. The standard deadline to file a lawsuit based on a personal injury in Tennessee is one year, and this one-year statute of limitations applies to health care liability actions as well. However, special rules apply to medical malpractice claims that don’t apply to other personal injury claims. For instance, you might not discover the malpractice at the moment it happens. In these cases, you have one year from the date you discover the injury, up to three years from the negligent act or omission. If the doctor or hospital tried to hide their mistake from you, you have one year from the date of discovery no matter how long after the event. This exception also applies if doctors negligently leave a foreign object in your body after surgery; you have one year from the date of discovery to file a claim, regardless of when the mistake happened.
Whenever you suspect you were harmed by medical negligence, contact a medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible. In Knoxville and East Tennessee, call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, at 865-500-3121. There is no fee until after we are successful in recovering compensation for you.
Knox County Personal Injury
When you suffer a serious injury because of somebody else’s negligence, it’s only right for them to pay for your medical bills and compensate you for your pain and suffering, the time you missed from work, and other legal damages that result from the accident. That’s why individuals and businesses cover their cars and premises with liability insurance. Unfortunately, insurance companies have something else in mind when it comes to paying claims. With years of experience on the defense side of injury claims, we know all the insurance company tricks for denying liability or devaluing a claim, and we know how to negotiate or litigate a result that gets you the compensation you need and deserve after being hurt in an accident that wasn’t your fault. Call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, after any Knoxville or East Tennessee motor vehicle accident, boating or jet ski accident, slip and fall, or any other personal injury in Knoxville or East Tennessee.
Commercial/Business Law and Litigation in Knoxville
Atkins Brezina, PLLC, provides strategic and capable representation in any Knoxville business, commercial or corporate legal matter. We have experience in business entity formation, negotiating and drafting contracts, consulting on construction and development projects, and managing transactions from commercial leases to mergers and acquisitions. Our firm is also available to represent you in a business or commercial dispute. Count on Atkins Brezina, PLLC, to protect your rights and promote your interests in any business negotiation, litigation, mediation, arbitration, trial or appeal.
Hometown General Law Practice Serving Knoxville Residents in All Areas of Law
Feel free to call on Atkins Brezina, PLLC, for trusted legal advice whenever you have a legal question and could use the advice of an experienced and knowledgeable attorney. We handle civil trials and appeals in all legal matters, and we can help you with all of your estate planning and probate needs, including drafting wills and estate plans and powers of attorney for any need.
Let Our Experience Work for You. Call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, Today.
Call Atkins Brezina, PLLC, today at 865-500-3121 for a free consultation on your Knoxville medical malpractice, personal injury, business law or other legal matter. Our Knoxville medical malpractice attorney offer a variety of reasonable and affordable fee structures, including contingency fees in appropriate cases where we advance all costs associated with your case and only charge a fee if we are successful on your behalf.
