Confidential
Settlement – $1,300,000Facts
On December 8, 1993, the plaintiff mother, a 19-year-old secretary, was hospitalized for the delivery of her first baby, the plaintiff child. The plaintiff mother was admitted to the defendant hospital because her water broke at 9:00 a.m. Her pregnancy was one day less than two weeks overdue. The plaintiff mother was initially observed, then given Pitocin to induce labor. She began to have contractions with the Pitocin. The labor progressed overnight. The first stage of labor ended at 5:40 a.m. the next day. The plaintiff child dropped and her baseline heart rate became and remained abnormally high. The plaintiff child experienced increasingly variable decelerations with the contractions although the fetal heart rate variability initially remained normal. The nurses informed the defendant obstetrician on duty about these findings but he did not attend the plaintiff mother at that time. After approximately 7:00 a.m. and onward, in addition to a baseline tachycardia, the plaintiff child's variable decelerations became deeper and more prolonged, and the fetal heart variability between decelerations became abnormally little. The nurses called the defendant obstetrician. He was informed of the changes in the plaintiff child's and plaintiff mother's conditions. The defendant obstetrician was off call at 8:00 a.m. He did not come in and it is unclear whether he made a report regarding the plaintiff's condition to the physician due to come on duty at 8:00 a.m. The second obstetrician on duty at 8:00 a.m. was delayed in traffic and arrived at approximately 8:45 a.m. At about 8:40 a.m., the plaintiff child had six minutes of profound bradycardia, with the fetal rate at or about 60 per minute for that interval, with several short rises up to a rate of about 120 per minute. The plaintiff child's fetal heart rate pattern took on a sinusoidal shape. The second defendant obstetrician reviewed the fetal heart monitor strips and concluded that the plaintiff child should be delivered by cesarean section because of the poor progression of labor, but decided that the fetal heart monitor no longer showed acute ischemia. The cesarean section was performed approximately two hours later. The plaintiffs brought this action under negligence and emotional distress (pursuant to Burgess v. Superior Court) theories of recovery.
Settlement Discussions
The settlement discussions were not disclosed.
Specials in Evidence
and future MEDS $2,000,000 (present value) $640,000 (present value) $________
Injuries
The plaintiff child had perinatal seizures, and showed CT and MRI evidence of progressive ventricular dilatation and of widespread infarcts, particularly in the occipital area. The plaintiff child was cortically blind and has not progressed beyond a developmental age of several months, though she is now two years old.
Other Information
The settlement was reached and approved by the court approximately nine months after the case was filed.
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