Introduction
Childbirth can be one of life's most joyous occasions. However, when something goes wrong during labor and delivery, parents are rightfully upset and look for answers. You may wonder whether doctors or nurses were responsible for your child's devastating brain damage, cerebral palsy, seizures, other birth injuries, or caused your baby to be stillborn or die soon after birth.
The Birth Injury Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
Most birth injury medical malpractice cases arise out of one or more of the following physicians actions:
- failure to timely identify fetal distress;
- failure to timely deliver the child by cesarean section;
- failure to deliver the child safely with forceps or vacuum extraction;
- failure to recognize an abruption of the placenta or uterine rupture prior to delivery;
- failure to test and treat for Group B strep before delivery.
Whether brain damage is diagnosed soon after delivery, or later when your child fails to achieve the normal developmental milestones and/or is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, you naturally want to know why your child is injured.
Experienced birth injury lawyers generally consider the following questions when evaluating a potential case:
- Were there warning signs of a potential problem during the prenatal period or during labor and delivery that should have prompted the doctor to act?
- Did the doctor treat and properly manage the conditions capable of causing irreversible brain damage?
- What caused the baby's brain damage?
- Would appropriate care have prevented the brain damage?
To properly answer these questions, a lawyer must be highly skilled, be aware of the standard of care applied to doctors, understand the causes of birth-related brain damage, and have access to well qualified experts in this field.
Successful Birth Injury Claims Involving United States Military Hospitals
Claims against the United States for birth injuries that are prepared by experienced attorneys and have strong support from respected medical experts frequently result in structured settlements. The structured settlements often are set up in a way that medical, hospital, therapeutic and custodial expenses are covered throughout the child's lifetime. The parents may be paid to provide custodial care for their child in their home and still have the flexibility to be active in their own lives and those of their other children. The structured settlement also eliminates the worries that can accompany a financial settlement both in terms of investment of the monies and payment of subsequent health care related bills.
Attorneys fees and costs may be paid through funds separate from the structured medical trust so that the parents have the comfort of knowing the trust monies will not be reduced by outside expenditures. In military medical malpractice cases, attorneys' fees are limited by federal statute to 20% of the value of the overall settlement. If it becomes necessary to file a lawsuit in United States District Court, attorneys' fees are then limited to 25% of any subsequent settlement or judgment.
Conclusion
In the unfortunate event of an injury to either a mother or a baby, the parents may want to pursue both answers and compensation through legal action. This type of a case requires an attorney with extraordinary knowledge and experience in the field of medical malpractice, especially in childbirth cases, which is essential to building a successful case.
Ryan & Brown's Experience with Military Birth Injury Claims
The lawyers at Ryan & Brown have over 60 years of experience in resolving claims and lawsuits against the United States involving birth injuries to a child or mother as a result of poor medical care. One of our lawyers is a former high-risk labor and delivery nurse who adds a unique expertise to our legal team. We have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for families making it possible for them to get all of the necessary care for their injured child as well as allow them to resume some of the family activities they had to abandon when their child was injured. Please contact us today to let us help you too.
