Birth Injury Lawyers in Philadelphia

Groundbreaking Results in Birth and Neonatal Injury Cases

Since our firm’s founding in 1987, we have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for children who have suffered devastating birth and neonatal injuries, which also cause significant emotional, financial, and social burdens for their families. We have been at the forefront of securing large financial recoveries in groundbreaking cases and in driving improvements in medical practice. Significant results include:

• $78.5 million jury verdict in Philadelphia on behalf of a child who suffered severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy as a result of an 81-minute delay in the performance of an emergency Cesarean section delivery.
• $30.5 million jury verdict in Georgia for negligent management of labor and delivery, which resulted in a baby suffering a severe hypoxic ischemic brain injury that led to her development of spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and a seizure disorder.
• $20 million settlement in Central Pennsylvania for a child who suffered kernicterus and cerebral palsy due to healthcare providers’ negligence in failing to timely treat his hyperbilirubinemia.
• $17.5 million settlement during the trial of an Illinois cerebral palsy case in favor of a mom-to-be whose obstetric providers failed to treat her with injectable progesterone throughout her high-risk pregnancy in order to prevent a recurrence of extreme preterm labor. Because of this mistake, she went into labor at only 22 ½ weeks of gestation.
• $16.05 million settlement in Massachusetts for a baby who suffered severe brain damage at birth following a placental abruption. We were informed at the time that this was the largest pre-trial medical malpractice recovery in Massachusetts.
• $16 million settlement for negligent management of labor and delivery causing cerebral palsy.
• $16 million verdict in New York on behalf of a child with severe cerebral palsy caused by a catastrophic placental abruption that occurred at 39 ½ weeks of gestation.
• $14 million settlement for a twin who suffered irreversible, preventable brain damage due to medical providers’ failure to monitor his dangerously dropping heart rate (bradycardia) as they were preparing for a Cesarean section, as well as their failure to expedite delivery.
• $13 million settlement for a child in Pennsylvania who developed cerebral palsy secondary to a preventable brain injury that occurred during the pushing stages of labor when an obstetrician and his team failed to act upon clear evidence of deterioration demonstrated in the electronic fetal monitor strips.
• $12 million settlement in a neonatal malpractice case in Miami, Florida, during the fourth day of trial on behalf of the family of a child with kernicterus and cerebral palsy, resulting from the negligence of several pediatricians and neonatologists during the child’s first week of life.
• $11.8 million settlement in a Central Florida case where the baby suffered severe brain damage at birth following a placental abruption. At the time, the recovery may have been the largest ever pretrial medical malpractice recovery in the region.
• $10.24 million settlement in New York for a negligent obstetrics case where the child suffered severe hypoxic ischemia, causing cerebral palsy and all of the other sequela that follow such a diagnosis.
  $10 million settlement in Alabama for a baby who presented at a hospital with an enterovirus infection (a routine and nearly always benign viral infection), who suffered irreversible brain damage after the medical team’s negligence resulted in a fluid overload-induced cardiac arrest following a critical delay in IV placement.
• $10 million settlement of an Arizona birth injury case where the baby suffered severe brain damage as a result of the defendant-hospital’s failure to timely treat the child’s non-reassuring fetal heart rate tracings. At the time, this may have been the largest ever pre-trial medical malpractice recovery in the region.

Our Philadelphia Birth Malpractice Injury Attorneys Win Historic Recoveries for Newborns and Mothers

As an example of our groundbreaking work, in the 1990s, insurance companies decided that mothers and newborn babies only required—and they would only pay for—a 24-hour hospital stay. Many neonatal problems do not manifest until 3-5 days of life, and during the era of post-delivery 2-week follow-up pediatrician appointments, infants were falling through the cracks and developing kernicterus, often resulting in catastrophic brain injury. Attorney Carol Nelson Shepherd was a pioneer in kernicterus litigation, achieving a $5 million recovery in a Philadelphia kernicterus case resulting from a failure to diagnose and treat a newborn infant’s jaundice. Pennsylvania subsequently enacted legislation requiring insurers to pay for at least 48-hour hospital stays for newborns when the issue came to light, in part, through lawsuits, such as that brought by our firm.

In a case highlighting the firm’s creative lawyering capabilities, attorneys Daniel S. Weinstock and Carolyn M. Chopko achieved a $10 million settlement in a kernicterus/cerebral palsy case in California, where the law at the time imposed a general damages cap of $250,000 in medical negligence cases and applied numerous hurdles and barriers designed to prevent a medical malpractice victim from obtaining fair compensation for their injuries. Under the unique circumstances of this case—where the hospital where the client was born was providing substandard treatment and care to newborn babies if their family members spoke Spanish but not English—Weinstock and Chopko were able to develop a strong discrimination case as an adjunct to the medical negligence claim, thus rendering the tort reform laws inapplicable. The recovery may be the largest in any such case in the history of the State of California, which pioneered tort reform in the 1970s.

Weinstock and Chopko also secured a $5.3 million recovery in rural Florida in a case involving the failure of a pediatric team to timely transfer a baby to a regional hospital where she could receive body cooling therapy in order to minimize the impact of her birth injury. Feldman Shepherd is unaware of any previous cases in the country where a recovery was made for negligent failure to perform body cooling.

Birth and Neonatal Injury Claims

Birth and neonatal injuries often lead to serious, life-long conditions, with cerebral palsy being the most commonly recognized. While many complications can arise during childbirth and the neonatal period, when injury occurs, it is frequently linked to a failure by medical professionals to act appropriately or quickly enough in response to recognized risks.

Injuries during labor and delivery occur when medical practitioners fail to properly monitor and respond to distress signals from the mother or child during the delivery process. 

What Are Common Areas of Medical Malpractice?

• Failure to Address Fetal Distress: Delays in performing a Cesarean section (C-section) when the baby is in distress, often leading to oxygen deprivation. This includes the failure to properly interpret or act upon concerning readings from electronic fetal monitoring strips, which are designed to alert the medical team to fetal distress.
• Mismanagement of Complications During Delivery: Mismanagement of conditions that endanger the fetus, such as placental abruption, uterine rupture, umbilical cord prolapse, and severe maternal conditions like preeclampsia.
• Failure to Address Oxygen Deprivation: Any failure to prevent or quickly reverse the lack of oxygen that leads to hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).
• Improper Use of Delivery Tools: Injuries caused by the improper application of forceps or vacuum extractors, which can result in Erb’s palsy, nerve damage, fractures, or bleeding in the infant's skull.

Injuries During the Neonatal Period 

Injuries during the neonatal period can extend into the hours and days immediately following birth. Failure to provide proper care or diagnose serious issues in the neonatal unit may include:

• Inadequate Resuscitation: Mistakes in the immediate post-birth period, such as improper resuscitation at birth, which is critical for stabilizing the newborn.
• Mismanagement of Infections: Failure to timely diagnose and treat serious infections like meningitis or encephalitis. When diagnosis or treatment is delayed, these infections can rapidly lead to severe brain damage and profound developmental delays.
• Jaundice Mismanagement: Failure to treat severe jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia), which, when left untreated, can progress to brain damage known as kernicterus.
• Procedural Errors: Mistakes during necessary medical interventions, such as a malpositioned central catheter, or general failures to stabilize a newborn experiencing cardiac arrest.