A jury in Chester County, Pennsylvania recently awarded a historic $32.8 million verdict to a 3-year-old plaintiff and her mother – the largest reported verdict in Chester County in 20 years. The child suffers from severe cerebral palsy caused by significant brain damage during an emergency C-section. Compensation consisted of $800,000 for loss of future earnings, $1 million for past and future non-economic damages, and $31 million for future medical expenses.
According to court documents, two employees of Phoenixville Hospital were found to be negligent for not timely notifying physicians that the child’s fetal heart rate had dropped to dangerous levels approximately two hours after she had been admitted. Medical experts testified that decreased blood flow caused by an infant’s heart deceleration, can contribute to decreased oxygen delivery and increase the risks of brain injury and death.
Ultimately, the treating physician was dismissed and the Hospital itself was included in the judgment, rendering the hospital solely responsible, financially, for the compensation. Such a verdict is reassuring to medical malpractice victims and advocates in need of holding negligent health care providers responsible for causing them preventable harm.
If your child has suffered a birth injury as the result of a medical practitioner’s negligence and would like to learn more about your rights, allow a Washington, DC birth injury lawyer from The Law Offices of Michael M. Wilson M.D., J.D. and Associates to personally review your case. For a FREE consultation, call 202.223.4488.
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Dr. Michael M. Wilson is an attorney and a physician who earned his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his legal and medical degrees from Georgetown University. He has focused in the area of medical malpractice for more than three decades and secured more than $100 million in settlements and verdicts on behalf of clients throughout the country. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and New York as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is listed in America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators.