The following blog entry is written to illustrate an example of a birth injury case. Reviewing this kind of lawsuit should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.
(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this birth injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)
The plaintiff’s expert neonatologist claimed that holding off the delivery for 48 hours would have permitted the babies’ lungs, gastrointestinal tract and brain to have matured sufficiently at 24 weeks gestation to avoid the subsequent damages the twins suffered, including brain damage to Ashley.
The defense’s expert perinatologist opined that Perk’s management of the two telephone calls he received from Teimen’s nurse met the standard of care, and that there was no indication for Teimen to be kept an additional 12 hours of observation with the administration of continuous tocolytics, antibiotics and betamethazone.
Teimen admitted at trial that although she was still feeling contractions when she was initially discharged from the hospital, she did not tell the nurse. She also claimed that she did not read the written discharge instructions she signed, which required her to stay at the hospital if her contractions were persistent.
Ashley, age 6 at trial, has developmental/cognitive delays, for which she receives speech therapy and oral aversion therapy. Chris, 6, has matured into a nearly normal child.
The plaintiffs’ claimed $5.72 million in medical costs to date, most of which was paid by private medical insurance.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
The plaintiffs’ asked the jury for $4 million in past medical costs, $2 million for Ashley’s past and future pain and suffering, and between $500,000 and $1 million for Chris’s past and future pain and suffering.
The defendants contended that the pre-term labor was caused by an occult, subclinical infection that, by evaluation of the placenta and umbilical cords of the twins by a placental specialist, had been ongoing for five to seven days prior to the delivery. The defendants claimed that the conditions were extensive and severe, and that the labor could not have been controlled. They claimed that the outcome of the twins wouldn’t have been altered, based on the demonstrated microscopic evidence of the extent of intrauterine infection in Teimen.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.