A three year old girl in Sacramento, California was awarded $9.6 million in damages as a result of a medical malpractice suit. The medical malpractice lawsuit claimed that the doctor waited too long to perform an emergency C-section, despite evidence that the baby’s heart rate was worsening. As a result, the child sustained brain damage during delivery and will be unable to ever walk, talk or care for herself. Additionally, the child suffers from occasional seizures and must be fed through a feeding tube, hooked directly into her stomach.
The child’s mother was also awarded damages of $250,000 as compensation for the emotional stress of the delivery.
Pittsburgh medical malpractice and injury attorney Bernie Tully has handled many medical malpractice claims.
I can tell you from personal experience that they are very difficult cases to win. But they are winnable in the right circumstances. Remember, I said I would always tell you the way it really is.
The reason why they are difficult to win is that the jury often wants to believe the doctor did all he or she could to help the patient. But as you can see in this case, when there are obvious signs of a medical problem, especially for a newborn, the doctor must take the appropriate action to deliver the baby safely.
Pittsburgh medical malpractice and injury attorney Bernie Tully will fund all costs involved in pursuing your medical malpractice claim. You, as the innocent victim, will not have to do anything other than cooperate as best you can in pursuing your case.
I can also tell you from personal experience that another reason why malpractice cases are hard to settle is that a settlement adversely affects the doctor. How? Well, when he or she comes up for renewal of their medical malpractice insurance, it’s virtually certain that their rates will skyrocket when a claim has been made.
For that reason, doctors are very reluctant to settle a medical malpractice case. That makes it more difficult to settle medical malpractice cases than, say, an auto accident where the victim is rear ended. This malpractice situation is much different.
In addition to all of the above, almost always the doctor feels in his or her heart that they did nothing wrong and they did all they could. Why is this important? Because the doctor has to approve any settlement and if they have that mindset, they are much more likely to go to trial on the case.
Having said all of that, in the right case a jury will award a verdict against the doctor and for the insurance victim. And if the jury finds against the hospital and doctor the award is often very big as we saw in the malpractice case discussed above.
More to come tomorrow on this topic,
Thanks for reading.
Bernie the attorney
