Malpractice in Psychiatry and Related Fields

Abstract

In any negligence or malpractice action the aggrieved party must establish by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that the defendant has failed to conform to a certain standard of conduct, (2) that there is a reasonable cause-and-effect relationship between that conduct and the alleged injury, and (3) that the loss or injury is of a type of concern to the law. When applied to psychiatry and related fields, the author finds that, in a malpractice action, with the exclusion of similar facts evidence, establishing fault or causation is usually a happenstance.