$22 Million Awarded To Family of Woman Who Died During Child Birth

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

Last month, Illinois jurors handed down a record verdict to the family of a woman who died from complications during child birth. Jurors awarded $22 million to the family, finding that the hospital staff’s failure to treat the woman’s high blood pressure resulted in a massive brain hemorrhage. According to Plaintiffs’ lawyers, the hospital staff negligently failed to properly treat the woman’s high blood pressure during labor, thereby causing the massive hemorrhage. After suffering the brain hemorrhage, the woman was placed on a ventilator and died four days later. Her son, Richard, was delivered by Caesarean section and survived. The verdict is the largest award involving the death of a woman in Illinois, according to the Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter.

At Silverman Thompson, our lawyers routinely handle medical malpractice / medical negligence matters involving health care providers’ failure to properly monitor patients during labor and delivery. Unfortunately, negligence during a woman’s labor and/or delivery often results in significant harm to the mother and/or children being born with profound physical and neurological deficits. A surviving spouse and/or parents are then often faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical expenses necessary to properly care for their child, expenses that they often cannot afford. At STSW, our lawyers recognize that in order to successfully pursue these cases, numerous experts must be retained in various fields of medicine ranging from obstetrics, maternal fetal medicine, neonatology, perinatology, pulmonology, critical care, nursing, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurodevelopmental disabilities, life care planning, vocational rehabilitation and economics. Without securing experts in these fields, successful resolution of these cases would be very difficult. Naturally, it is expensive to locate and retain experts in these fields who are willing to testify in court against other doctors. Our lawyers, therefore, have cultivated long-standing relationships with numerous experts around the country who are willing to review these cases and testify if necessary. Our offices also are able to take these matters on a contingency basis, meaning that our firm pays all up front expenses during the pendency of the litigation and our clients are only obligated to repay us those funds if we are successful through a settlement, jury verdict or on appeal.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of medical negligence / medical malpractice / medical injury / medical error in the context of labor and delivery, whether it is the mother or a delivered child that is the victim, call our lawyers in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. areas for a free consultation. Our number is (410) 385-2225. Our offices routinely handle these types of cases against all of the major hospitals in the area including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Harbor Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Union Memorial Hospital, Harbor Hospital, Washington Hospital Center, Anne Arundel Medical Center, Baltimore Washington Medical Center, University of Maryland Medical Center, Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Frederick Memorial Hospital, Howard County General Hospital, Sinai Hospital and St. Agnes Hospital, among others.