A fictitious defendant is a person that cannot be identified by the plaintiff before a lawsuit is commenced. Commonly this person is identified as "John Doe" or "Jane Doe".
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is in the plaintiff's favor, and a variety of court orders may be issued to enforce a right, award damages, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
"John Doe" and "Jane Doe" are multiple-use names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often used to refer to a corpse whose identity is unknown or unconfirmed. Secondly, such names are also often used to refer to a hypothetical "everyman" in other contexts, in a manner similar to "John Q. Public" or "Joe Public". There are many variants to the above names, including "John Roe", "Richard Roe", "Jane Roe" and "Baby Doe", "Janie Doe" or "Johnny Doe".
As the statute of limitations for many torts such as medical malpractice is generally very short, plaintiffs under pressure to issue an originating process such as a statement of claim often use contrived names such as John Doe in the title of proceedings and identify the person's role in the lawsuit in the body of the pleading. Generally, this tactic preserves the limitation period and, with leave of the court, the plaintiff can later substitute the real name of the defendant once it is learned during the discovery process.
A statute of limitations is a law passed by a legislative body in a common law system to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated.
Medical malpractice is a legal cause of action that occurs when a medical or health care professional deviates from standards in his or her profession, thereby causing injury to a patient.
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a pre-trial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from the other party or parties by means of discovery devices such as interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions and depositions. Discovery can be obtained from non-parties using subpoenas. When a discovery request is objected to, the requesting party may seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion to compel discovery.
For example, in a medical malpractice case, the plaintiff may have been treated by doctors and nurses he or she may have seen, but did not know the names of at the time. This is particularly true of plaintiffs who may have been unconscious during long periods of their treatment. At the beginning of the lawsuit, it may be impossible to determine which medical professional was negligent, so all persons who treated the plaintiff must be sued. However, the hospital records available to the plaintiff may be limited or unintelligible, and the hospital that does have the records may refuse to release them unless litigation is pending.
A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.
Typically, the plaintiff will plead as follows:
In the case of John Smith vs. Jones Memorial Hospital and Dr. John Doe.
Jones Memorial Hospital is a hospital in the city of Anytown, USA.
Dr. John Doe is a doctor employed by Jones Memorial, and at all relevant times was the plaintiff's treating physician. The identity of the treating physician is unknown to the plaintiff despite the plaintiff's best efforts to identify the doctor.
Once the originating pleading is issued, the plaintiff is usually required to work with all deliberate speed to determine the names of the fictitious defendants through discovery of the defendants it is aware of. If the plaintiff delays too long, the court generally will not allow amendment of the claim to substitute the names of the appropriate party, and any valid claims against those defendants may become statute barred. However, the plaintiff may not, through the action of the fictitious defendants or the other defendants to the lawsuit, be prejudiced by any delay caused by obstruction or refusal to reveal the identities of the fictitious witnesses.
Laches refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making a legal claim, or moving forward with legal enforcement of a right, particularly in regard to equity; hence, it is an unreasonable delay that can be viewed as prejudicing the opposing [defending] party. When asserted in litigation, it is an equity defense, that is, a defense to a claim for an equitable remedy. The person invoking laches is asserting that an opposing party has "slept on its rights", and that, as a result of this delay, circumstances have changed, witnesses or evidence may have been lost or no longer available, etc., such that it is no longer a just resolution to grant the plaintiff's claim. Laches is associated with the maxim of equity, "Equity aids the vigilant, not the sleeping ones [that is, those who sleep on their rights]." Put another way, failure to assert one’s rights in a timely manner can result in a claim being barred by laches.
In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudicated in the action.
In civil proceedings and criminal prosecutions under the common law, a defendant may raise a defense in an attempt to avoid criminal or civil liability. Besides contesting the accuracy of any allegation made against them in a criminal or civil proceeding, a defendant may also make allegations against the prosecutor or plaintiff or raise a defense, arguing that, even if the allegations against the defendant are true, the defendant is nevertheless not liable.
A demurrer is a pleading in a lawsuit that objects to or challenges a pleading filed by an opposing party. The word demur means "to object"; a demurrer is the document that makes the objection. Lawyers informally define a demurrer as a defendant saying "So what?" to the pleading.
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Claims of medical malpractice, when pursued in US courts, are processed as civil torts. Sometimes an act of medical malpractice will also constitute a criminal act, as in the case of the death of Michael Jackson.
Personal injury is a legal term for an injury to the body, mind or emotions, as opposed to an injury to property.
Reibl v Hughes [1980] 2 S.C.R. 880 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on negligence, medical malpractice, informed consent, the duty to warn, and causation.
A personal injury lawyer is a lawyer who provides legal services to those who claim to have been injured, physically or psychologically, as a result of the negligence of another person, company, government agency or any entity. Personal injury lawyers primarily practice in the area of law known as tort law. Examples of common personal injury claims include injuries from slip and fall accidents, traffic collisions, defective products, workplace injuries and professional malpractice.
Tort reform refers to proposed changes in the civil justice system that aim to reduce the ability of victims to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive.
The Healthcare Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA) was introduced by Congressman Ron Wyden from Oregon.
Robert James Provan was an attorney at law who practiced in Texas and is most noted for his bringing the first lawsuit of its kind in the United States against a health maintenance organization (HMO) on behalf of physician's using the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 that the Wall Street Journal said was poised to become a major test case and whose rulings have been cited in other cases.
A Doe subpoena is a subpoena that seeks the identity of an unknown defendant to a lawsuit. Most jurisdictions permit a plaintiff who does not yet know a defendant's identity to file suit against John Doe and then use the tools of the discovery process to seek the defendant's true name. A Doe subpoena is often served on an online service provider or ISP for the purpose of identifying the author of an anonymous post.
Circuit courts are the general trial courts in the state of Wisconsin. There are currently 69 circuit courts in the state, divided into 10 judicial administrative districts. Circuit court judges hear and decide both civil and criminal cases. Each of the 249 circuit court judges are elected and serve six-year terms.
Wrongful birth is a legal cause of action in some common law countries in which the parents of a congenitally diseased child claim that their doctor failed to properly warn of their risk of conceiving or giving birth to a child with serious genetic or congenital abnormalities. Thus, the plaintiffs claim, the defendant prevented them from making a truly informed decision as to whether or not to have the child. Wrongful birth is a type of medical malpractice tort. It is distinguished from wrongful life, in which the child sues the doctor.
Tolling is a legal doctrine that allows for the pausing or delaying of the running of the period of time set forth by a statute of limitations, such that a lawsuit may potentially be filed even after the statute of limitations has run. Although grounds for tolling the statute of limitations vary by jurisdiction, common grounds include:
Landeros v. Flood was a 1976 court case in the state of California involving child abuse and alleged medical malpractice.
Doe ex. rel. Tarlow v. District of Columbia, 489 F.3d 376, is a unanimous decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, written by Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in which the Court upheld a 2003 District of Columbia statute that stated the conditions for authorizing a non-emergency surgical procedure on a mentally incompetent person. This case developed out of an appeal to a district court decision that was brought on behalf of a mentally incompetent patient who was subjected to an abortion without her consent and another patient who was subjected to an eye surgery without the patient's consent. Under the Appellate Court's interpretation of the statute, a court located in the District of Columbia, must apply the "best interest of the patient" standard to a person who was never competent, and the court must apply the "known wishes of the patient" standard to a person who was once competent. The appellate decision was remanded back to the District Court.
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