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Colorado medical malpractice laws
The law pertaining to medical malpractice in Colorado places a number of limits on the amount of money the injured party can collect in a successful suit against a defendant.
Damage Caps
Where non-economic damages are concerned, up to $300,000 may be awarded in cases of medical malpractice or negligence. However, the total amount awarded in damage compensation may not be in excess of $1 million under any circumstances.
Collateral Source Rule
The collateral source rule refers to how it is not legal for the defendant in a case of medical malpractice to introduce evidence designed to lower the amount of damages awarded to the plaintiff simply because the plaintiff received some form of compensation from a different party. Within Colorado, an obligatory offset exists for third party payments from sources including but not limited to insurance companies.
Several and Joint Liability
In the traditional law of liability, when multiple defendants are involved in a case of medical malpractice, each defendant will have to pay the full sum of the settlement if the other defendant or defendants are not able to pay the amount of the settlement that they would traditionally be responsible for. However, this law no longer holds validity within the state of Colorado; as a result, each defendant will only be assigned damage responsibility in proportion to the amount of fault they hold within the case.
Statute of Limitations
There is a 2-year statute of limitation since the discovery of the injury or since the time when the injury should reasonably have been found by the plaintiff.
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