A Georgia Appeals Court has agreed to award a $13.9 million settlement in a medical malpractice lawsuit that accuses Gwinnet Medical Center nurses of negligence in a birth injury lawsuit filed by a Georgia mother.

Plaintiff Melissa D. filed the birth injury lawsuit, alleging that the negligent actions of the nurses at Gwinnet Medical during childbirth caused her daughter to suffer prolonged oxygen deprivation, causing her to be born with severe birth injuries such as traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, and also cerebral palsy.

Melissa alleges that during childbirth, her then unborn child suffered from oxygen deprivation and the nurses attending her should have been aware of this as it is their job to keep tabs on the fetal monitor and check for signs of complications. If the nurses had been more aware, the team could have rushed Dempsey into emergency surgery and her child could have been saved through a C-section birth, the birth injury lawsuit claims.

Lead Witness Credibility Questioned

Much of the plaintiff’s case and subsequent favorable verdict was based on the testimony from a certified nurse midwife. Nurse Colleen M.’s testimony was crucial to clinching the medical malpractice trial for the plaintiff. However, the Gwinnet Medical Center had an issue with the nurse-midwife’s credentials when she was presented as an expert witness for the prosecution.

Georgia law requires that the expert witness testifying in a case be of the same profession as the healthcare provider whose actions have been called into question. Gwinnet Medical Center’s medical malpractice lawyers tried to argue that as a midwife the plaintiff’s expert witness did not have the necessary credentials to comment on the hospital or the nurses who delivered the plaintiff’s child.  Since Colleen is not a labor and delivery nurse, the defense’s medical malpractice lawyers tried to dispute her testimony and attempted to file for a new trial which Plaintiff Melissa D. appealed.

The Georgia Court of Appeals decided in favor of the mother, ruling that the midwife’s testimony was important and could be used as an expert witness. The majority opinion in the Georgia Court of Appeals was that since the midwife was also a registered nurse and had 20 years of extensive nursing experience she had the required credentials to appear as an expert witness for the prosecution.

Judge Ellington, who wrote the majority report for the Court, also stressed the fact that even as a midwife, Colleen was managing and working with a labor team that included other nurses.

Cerebral Palsy and Medical Malpractice

Most children who have cerebral palsy have had it since birth, often due to a lack of oxygen to the brain (called hypoxia) or to the body (asphyxia), premature delivery, or birth trauma — sometimes because of medical malpractice and delivery mistakes during labor or childbirth. Common causes of medical malpractice cerebral palsy include:

• Failure to appropriately monitor fetal heart rate before and during labor and birth
• Failure to plan and schedule a cesarean section procedure when a baby is too large to safely pass through the birth canal
• Delay in performing (or failure to perform) a medically necessary cesarean section procedure

Birth Injury Lawsuits

Medical malpractice lawsuits that stem from birth injuries and delivery mistakes are pretty complex from both a legal and medical standpoint — usually involving highly technical treatment issues and complicated questions of liability.

In the case of cerebral palsy, children will need special equipment, coverage for lifelong medical expenses, special education funds and both the parents and child may need therapy to work through these difficulties. This is one of the main reasons families choose to file birth injury lawsuits or medical malpractice lawsuits, to help them recoup some of the medical expenses they incur from the doctor’s or hospital’s negligence.