Family awarded record sum in third trial for malpractice case

When a woman enters a hospital in Pittsburgh to give birth to a baby, she places her trust in the doctors and nurses who will be performing the delivery. If procedures are not followed and mistakes are made, the baby may suffer birth injuries that could have been prevented if the delivery process had been followed more closely. These birth injuries are often extensive, and can require intense medical care for the rest of the child’s life.

Medical care for a young girl will be covered by a $130 million settlement that was awarded to her family during the third trial of the case that spanned a decade. The family of the girl los the first trial, and a second trial resulted in a hung jury after a higher court overturned the first verdict. Rather than settling for an original offer from the hospital, the lawyer for the family encouraged them to go to court and be heard by another jury.

Attorneys for the young girl and her family cite a miscommunication between doctors and nurses that left her with cerebral palsy after being denied oxygen while in the birth canal for close to 15 minutes.

The medical bills the family faces, along with the pain and suffering they deal with on a daily basis may be impossible to estimate at this point in the young girl’s life. When a birth injury is the result of negligence on the part of a nurse, doctor, or other hospital staff involved in the birthing process, the newborn’s family may be given money after winning a lawsuit to pay for pain and suffering and medical care for the baby throughout his or her life.

Source: New York Post, “This lawyer turned down $8M…and got them $130M,” Julia Marsh, April 18, 2013