Attorney Daily - Your source for the most important legal news

Nearly 100,000 people in the United States die as a result of medical malpractice each year. On April 6, 2010, a Gurnee, Illinois family was awarded approximately $29 million after a judge ruled in favor of its claims that negligence during childbirth caused the boy to become a quadriplegic, according to a recent Chicago Suns Times news report.

The family charged negligence by federally employed physicians who were working at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when their son was born in 2003. The family said an infection started before the mother went into labor. The first-time mother’s water broke early, but she was not given necessary antibiotics, lawyers say.

The family said during his first few hours of life, their son showed “red flags” related to having an infection, but the infection still went untreated. They say the infection traveled into the boy’s bloodstream and eventually to his brain.

The result was permanent brain damage. The boy is now a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, and he is unable to walk, talk or eat through his mouth.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve entered a judgment for $22.6 million, which was on top of a $6.5 million settlement in 2009 with the hospital.

On October 9, 2009, a Sacramento, California judge approved a $5.75 million settlement to a 4-year-old boy whose parents filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the UC Davis Medical Center over brain injuries the child suffered when he was born, which brought about cerebral palsy.

Superior Court Judge David I. Brown endorsed the compromise agreement on behalf of Cannon Hoops, who, according to his attorneys, suffered permanent neurological injuries during his December 1, 2004, birth at the hospital.

On October 8, 2009, a New York State Supreme Court jury in Saratoga County awarded $43.5 million to a woman who sued the former Bellevue Maternity Hospital in Niskayuna for severe brain damage she suffered during her birth in 1984.

Tiffany Busone, 24, of Schoharie County, sued the hospital for malpractice, arguing she suffered cerebral palsy as a result of a lack of oxygen and a failure to properly resuscitate her during her birth on July 15, 1984, according to people familiar with the lawsuit. She was deprived of oxygen for 10 to 15 minutes, they said.

While Busone has above-average intelligence and earned a degree from Arizona State University, she uses a wheelchair and lacks motor skills due to the brain damage, the sources said. The lawsuit, originally filed by the woman’s mother, J. Tracy Busone, dates to 1984 when the family lived in Saratoga County.

The six-member jury of three men and three women unanimously handed up the verdict in a trial before state Supreme Court Justice Stephen A. Ferradino early on the afternoon of October 8, 2009.

Busone will always require the use of a wheelchair, care of home health aides and medical equipment and will never be able to work to support herself financially, the firm said.

Bellevue Maternity Hospital, now know as Bellevue Woman’s Center, is part of Ellis Medicine, the Schenectady hospital system that runs Ellis Hospital in Schenectady.