When an infant suffers in any way, the parents often struggle with guilt and emotional pain. Sometimes those injuries are suffered during delivery, and in addition to the guilt and pain the parents experience, they also have feelings of anger and frustration. Many times the long and challenging process of pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit is more than parents can bear. For one family, the struggle of their exhaustive legal battle paid off when a judge awarded a little girl millions.
A three-year-old California girl has been awarded damages totaling $9.6 million after suffering a traumatic brain injury during delivery. Her mother was also awarded $250,000 for the emotional distress the event caused her. The award stems from a medical malpractice lawsuit the family filed against the doctor that delivered the little girl.
Despite knowledge of the baby’s gradually slowing heart rate and the mother’s inability to deliver naturally, the doctor opted to hold off on performing a cesarean section. The U.S. District Judge found that the doctor elected to wait on the cesarean inevitably causing the little girl’s brain injury. The little girl, who will never talk, walk or care for herself, must be fed by feeding tube and is blind. She also occasionally suffers from seizures due to the brain injury.
While a monetary award cannot replace the little girl’s childhood or make her healthy, it can give her family the resources they need to properly care for her. While this case unfolded in California, the successful outcome should go to show all malpractice victims in any state what determination, strength, and a good legal team can do.
Source: WashingtonTimes, “Judge awards $9.6M to child in medical malpractice case,” Nov. 2, 2015
