We represented the mother of a 5-year-old boy who suffered a severe brain injury during birth. The child's injuries were suffered as doctors performed an emergency cesarean section delivery after the mother had arrived at the hospital that morning experiencing labor pains, but still had not given birth by evening. The attending obstetrician ordered a C-section and paged a senior attending anesthesiologist, who did not arrive until 45 minutes later — due, as we demonstrated in court, to his being in a private room elsewhere in the hospital with an off-duty nurse. The jury had begun deliberations after a three-week trial when we reached settlement on the advice of a court-appointed guardian. The settlement ensures full-time care for a child who cannot walk, talk or feed himself. The $35 million settlement, according to the Jury Verdict Reporter was, at the time, "substantially higher than any other brain-injury-at-birth case" in Illinois history.
$35 Million
E. v. Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, et al.
