Articles Posted in Birth Injury

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The Illinois Appellate Court has found that a medical expert in a medical malpractice case may be impeached with the use of the physician’s §2-622 (Illinois Code of Civil Procedure) report as a prior inconsistent statement. This issue before the court was one of first impression in the state and was decided upon in Iaccino v. Anderson, No. 1-07-0207.
In the Iaccino birth injury lawsuit, the plaintiff’s attorneys alleged that the defendant doctors and hospital were responsible for the brain damage that the minor plaintiff, Jonathan Iaccino, suffered as a result of oxygen deprivation during his birth. The plaintiff’s attorneys alleged that the defendants’ medical negligent occurred as a result of their failure to monitor Jonathan’s fetal heart rate and their lack of response to the hyperstimulation of the uterus during his labor and delivery.

Gary Blake, M.D. provided a Illinois Code of Civil Procedure §2-622 affidavit as one of the plaintiff’s medical experts in Iaccino. When Dr. Blake signed the §2-622 report he stated that the decelerations recorded on a fetal-monitor strip were “variable decelerations.” However, at the trial, Dr. Blake testified that these strips showed “late decelerations” or “variable decelerations with a late component.”

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The family of a woman who died during childbirth has settled an Illinois wrongful death case for $14 million. The medical malpractice case resulted not only in the mother’s death, but also involved a child born with brain damage at Chicago’s Advocate Trinity Hospital. The settlement was reached in Sidonia Lawson, etc. v. Advocate Health Hospitals Corp., Cannon Vernon, MD, Jamiere Y. Smith, MD, et al., No. 09 L 12090.

In 2007, the 32 year-old decedent, Sabrina Lawson, went to Advocate Trinity Hospital with labor contractions. While there, the staff induced her with medications to try and speed along her delivery. However, while receiving the labor medications, Lawson’s baby began to show signs of fetal distress.

In such instances, the medical standard of care requires an emergency cesarean section; however, there was a delay of almost seven hours. By the time the baby was born, he had suffered from brain damage as a result of lack of oxygen and blood flow to his brain.

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A Cook County jury awarded $3,270,000 in a Chicago birth injury lawsuit. The verdict was against both the delivering obstetrician and her physicians’ group, both of which the jury found responsible for the brachial plexus injuries to the 11 lb. baby.

The infant’s 33 year-old mother had undergone two previous vaginal deliveries, and had experienced a relatively uneventful pregnancy. However, both of those two prior deliveries were of babies who weighed around 8 lbs., which is relatively large for a petite woman like the plaintiff’s mother. One of the claims made by the plaintiff’s attorneys in the Chicago birth injury lawsuit was that a cesarean section should have been recommended and performed due to the baby’s higher weight; he weighted 11 lbs. at birth.

The mother’s prenatal care was handled by Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group, which is affiliated with Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital. While her prenatal care was relatively uneventful, she did gain 58 lbs. during the course of her delivery, which was relatively high considering that the mother was only 5’2″. Again, plaintiff’s attorneys in her Illinois birth injury case alleged that there should have been indications that the baby was going to be large and potentially difficult to deliver vaginally.

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An Illinois birth injury lawsuit that alleged that the hospital and its staff chose not to perform a timely Cesarean section has agreed to settle the case for $6.5 million. The lawsuit was brought by the family of the severely brain damaged child with cerebral palsy born after the hospital, labor and delivery nurse, and family physician were late in ordering the necessary Cesarean section delivery. Cisneros, etc. v. The Advocate Health and Hospital Corporation, et al., No. 05 L 0488.

The Cook County birth injury case alleged that the hospital staff was negligent in choosing not to notice the presentation of the baby’s head and failing to diagnose cephalic pelvic disproportion, a condition that occurs when the baby’s head is too large for the mother’s pelvis. The Illinois birth injury lawsuit further alleged that the labor and delivery doctor and a nurse misread the fetal monitoring strips, which resulted in them giving the mother a drug to strengthen contractions. The drug was unnecessary because mom’s contractions were fine.

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A recent Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit received an $11.5 million award from a DuPage County jury. The Illinois medical negligence case included a birth injury claim regarding the demise of the plaintiff mother’s unborn child and an additional medical negligence claim regarding the loss of the mother’s small intestine. The negligence lawsuit against Naperville’s Edward Hospital was filed in DuPage County.

The Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit began when Sabine Miller, the plaintiff mother, presented to Edward Hospital at 14 weeks pregnant complaining of abdominal pains. Despite being in the second trimester of her pregnancy Miller was admitted to the hospital’s postpartum unit, which typically manages the care and treatment of mothers after the child has already been born.

The medical issues involved during the prenatal period versus the postpartum period are drastically different and require different types of care and treatment. The most drastic difference being that during the prenatal period the baby is still inside the mother and therefore cannot be monitored by way of external monitoring. Instead, during the prenatal period the infant’s condition is typically assessed using fetal heart monitoring strips, which record both baby’s heart rate, the mother’s contractions, if any, and typically include notations of the mother’s vital signs.

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An Illinois birth injury lawsuit involving claims of medical negligence by John H. Stroger Hospital employees was settled for $6.25 million. Because Stroger Hospital is a Cook County hospital, the Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit was brought against Cook County itself and not the hospital. Maria Rodriguez, as mother and next friend of Angel Gutierrez, a minor v. County of Cook, No. 07 L 13386.

In a traditional medical malpractice claim defense attorneys representing the hospital or doctor are typically hired directly by either the hospital or insurance company. However, when the facility is either a state-funded institution, like Stroger Hospital, then the defense attorneys are from the state’s attorneys office. Thomas Rieck, assistant Cook County state’s attorney, represented the defendants’ claims in Rodriguez. Another important wrinkle in this setting is the fact that there is a statute, the Local Governmental and Government Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/1-101, et seq. (Illinois Tort Immunity Act), which essentially allows the possibility of recovery against a Cook County hospital only if the hospital were found to be negligent in the treatment of a patient, but not liable if the hospital chose not to order tests or it was negligent because it misdiagnosed a patient. Michigan Avenue National Bank v. Cook County, 191 Ill. 2d 493 (2000) is the leading case interpreting the Illinois statute on immunity.

The plaintiff’s birth injury complaint alleged that the doctors at Stroger Hospital failed to respond adequately to the fetal heart rate decelerations at birth. Instead of recognizing the need for a quick delivery, the doctors attempted to correct the decelerations through the use of oxygen, amnioinfusion, and by changing the mother’s position. However, none of these measures were effective.

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The University of Chicago Medical Center has agreed to pay $7 million to resolve a 2006 lawsuit filed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan alleging that the Chicago hospital violated Illinois licensing regulations that control the number of infants each unit can support. According to the Illinois lawsuit, University of Chicago routinely practiced “double-bunking” infants in its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), i.e. placing two or more infants in beds designated for one infant only.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office was made aware of this double-bunking practice by two former University of Chicago Medical Center employees who traced the practice all the way back to 1997. Fortunately, as soon as the 2006 lawsuit was filed all doubling up of NICU patients ceased and has not resumed.

These bedding violations were against Illinois health laws and according to the attorney general placed some of the newborn infants at an increased risk for infections. However, a spokesperson from the University of Chicago Medical Center maintained that none of the NICU babies were at risk for any harm as a direct result of the over sized NICU and asserted that the hospital had only had its patients’ best interests in mind. The lawsuit itself did not include any claims of Illinois medical malpractice by the Chicago hospital’s NICU.

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Decisions made during labor and delivery can change your life forever. For example, your baby’s heart rate may drop during labor, which is often a sign of distress. The way your doctor and nurses respond to this sign directly impacts the final result. If they respond right away and everything goes smoothly then chances are you will leave the delivery room with a healthy baby. But if the medical team does not respond and fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation, then you might have a drastically different outcome.

Unfortunately, Illinois birth injury attorneys only hear about the second outcome, when things do not go well and some form of Illinois medical malpractice occurs during labor and delivery. And because of the nature of these cases, birth injury lawsuits are oftentimes the most heartbreaking of any type of medical malpractice.

Consider a recent Illinois birth injury case against a nurse midwife, a sponsoring obstetrician, and a Chicago-area hospital that was recently settled with the now 13 year-old boy’s family. The boy sustained a brain injury as a result of hypoxia (low noxygen levels) at birth which resulted in cerebral palsy.

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A recent Cook County jury awarded a positive verdict to a 20 year-old man for severe brain damage that he sustained as a result of a Cook County birth injury. Given that a plaintiff has 8 years from the date of injury to file an Illinois birth injury claim, typically we see these lawsuits filed and settled well before the injured child reaches adulthood.
And while the age of the injured child at the time of the Cook County verdict might be unusual for a Cook County birth injury lawsuit, the case facts are fairly typical of an Illinois birth injury.

The Illinois birth injury lawsuit was brought by the plaintiff’s mother, who claimed that her son was born with severe brain damage as a result of negligence on behalf of Cook County Hospital. The plaintiff’s defense rested on claims that a delay on behalf of the hospital staff in delivering the baby was the cause of his subsequent brain damage.

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