Birth Injury Settlement is $6.25M
2015 Medical Malpractice Trial Report
Obstetrician and nurse named as defendants in lawsuit alleging baby's brain injury at birth due to failure to respond to fetal monitoring
Case Summary
The plaintiff was expecting the birth of her second child with an estimated delivery date of 4/12/08. On 3/19/08 at about 1:40 a.m., the plaintiff arrived at the hospital with spontaneous membrane rupture with clear fluid and no contractions. The plaintiff was placed on the fetal monitor and the baby’s heart rate was reactive and strong.
See more recent birth injury cases:
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Around 1 p.m., the defendant obstetrician was in to see the plaintiff as the baby’s heart rate began to rise. The defendant obstetrician viewed the fetal monitor strips and indicated that everything looked good. By 2:00, the baby’s heart rate had increased further and the strips became non-reassuring. The worrisome findings continued for the next hour and were noted by the defendant nurse and the defendant obstetrician. No interventions were undertaken to get the child delivered.
The minor plaintiff was finally delivered by forceps at 3:11 p.m. Despite the fact that the minor plaintiff’s Apgar scores were 8 and 9, he immediately had difficulty breathing and had to be intubated emergently and brought to the NICU. The minor plaintiff was unable to feed and had a G-tube placed for feeding. MRIs done in the first few weeks of life show that the minor plaintiff suffered a global brain injury from lack of oxygen.
Today, the minor plaintiff cannot speak, cannot walk without assistance, is still fed through a G-Tube and requires constant care for all of his daily activities.
Case Settles During Jury Selection
The plaintiffs were prepared to present expert testimony that the defendant nurse was negligent in failing to provide intrauterine resuscitative measures to assist the baby when the monitor strips became worrisome. The plaintiffs’ expert was further expected to testify that the defendant obstetrician was negligent in failing to perform a cesarean section when the monitor strips became worrisome around 2:00 p.m. The plaintiffs were prepared to present expert testimony that the minor plaintiff’s injuries occurred in the last hour before birth and the child would have been born without injury if the defendants had acted appropriately.
This birth injury case settled for $6,250,000 (Six Million Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars) after jury selection had begun.
Lubin & Meyer attorney Robert Higgins represented the plaintiff in this lawsuit.
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