Jury Awards $50 Million in Birth Injury Lawsuit

A jury has awarded $50 million to a young boy and his family who claimed that the boy’s birth injury was caused by a hospital’s mistake.

The birth injury lawsuit was filed by plaintiffs Aimee L. and her husband David, who claimed that physicians at NorthShore University HealthSystem did not recognize soon enough that the couple’s baby was in danger before he was born, and did not order a cesarean section soon enough.

According to the couple, they went to the Northshore Hospital in Evanston, Il. to give birth in may 2009. They say that when they arrived, their baby’s vitals were normal, indicating that the fetus was healthy.

However, they go on state that “over the next several hours, that completely changed.” Allegedly, the fetus’s levels effectively read as undetectable on the monitors, indicating a “major problem,” and a “major crash.”

The Northshore birth injury lawsuit says that despite this indication that something was deeply wrong with the fetus’ heath, the doctors didn’t take any action. Additionally, the doctors allegedly prescribed Pitocin, a contraction-strengthening drug during Aimee’s labor. The couple claims that this drug caused the fetus additional stress.

Later, the boy was born after 12 hours of labor, according to the couple. Allegedly, the doctors delivered him via cesarean, but performed the surgery as a routine instead of an emergency cesarean.

The couple states that after the baby was born, his skin was blue, had a low heart rate, and could not breathe on his own. They go on to state that physicians had to perform chest compressions to get oxygen to his body.

Allegedly, after his birth, he suffered brain injury from the time during which he was deprived of oxygen. The couple state that he developed cerebral palsy because of the birth injury and oxygen deprivation.

Based on the parents’ claims, a jury found NorthShore hospital as well as a doctor and a nurse who worked on the birth of the son, liable for the boy’s injury. They determined that the hospital should pay $2 million for past emotional distress suffered by the boy and his family, $4 million for his past loss of a normal life, $20 million for his future loss of a normal life, $12 million for the boy’s future medical expenses, $3 million for his future lost earnings, $1.3 million for his future pain and suffering, and $1.5 for an increased risk of harm.

The couple’s attorney told Law360 that “this is a child that has been robbed of normal thinking. He’s a child that can’t conceptualize time. He can’t dream dreams, and he’s not safe by himself. He’s to lived like a normal 9-year-old boy. It’s very sad and the jury recognized that, and that’s why the verdict was as substantial as it was.”

In contrast, the hospital expressed displeasure at the verdict and stated that they intend to appeal it.

Parents have filed birth injury lawsuits over a range of issues that they believed were caused not by injuries, and not by inherited traits or other issues. Stanford Children’s Health lists a number of possible birth injuries and gives parents insight into the possible causes and how to know if a child might have suffered one. 

Parents have aimed to hold medical professionals accountable for their child’s broken bones, brain injury, and even wrongful death, among many issues. Fox recently reported on one mother who claimed that her child was born with a broken leg because of her doctors’ rough treatment of the baby during birth. 

The NorthShore Birth Injury Lawsuit is Case No. 2014-L-013348, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.