Settlement:
$7.0M Settlement for mother
$8.0 Settlement for baby
Case: V.W. v. Bronx Lebanon Hospital and several doctors
Summary:
This medical malpractice case involved brain damage during childbirth to both the mother and the baby. The baby was institutionalized. The mother died almost six years later as a result of her injuries.
Representation:
Eric Turkewitz of the Turkewitz Law Firm represented the mother.
Dom Penson of Barasch McGarry Salzman & Penson represented the baby.
Facts:
The mother was admitted to Bronx Lebanon Hospital in 2006 as a high-risk pregnancy due to high blood pressure (preeclampsia). She was 30 weeks pregnant. The treatment for preeclampsia is to deliver the baby.
The hospital, however, via a number of different doctors that were treating her, delayed the delivery even when signs of fetal distress occurred. The hospital delayed further even after a “stat” c-section was ordered.
After the baby was finally removed via Caesarean section, the mother’s anesthesia prematurely wore off. The anesthesiologist then attempted to establish an airway for the mother via intubation.
But the surgeon testified that the mother’s abdomen filled with air, an indication that she had not been properly intubated. This improper intubation was not promptly recognized by the anesthesiologist. The mother subsequently coded twice, and was left profoundly brain damaged.
The mother was institutionalized thereafter and died in September 2012.
The baby alleged that she too was brain damaged as a result of the failure to promptly deliver.
The mother’s damages, and her estate’s damages after death, were:
- Pain and suffering for almost six years while in an institution. Defendants claimed that she was in a persistent vegetative state and didn’t have any level of awareness, and therefore had no “conscious” pain and suffering. We countered that she was on pain medications, which would not be needed if she was in a coma, and made audible noises with grimaces when touched.
- Loss of parental guidance, nurture and support to the brain damaged infant.
- Loss of parental guidance, nurture and support to another child with neurological injuries (a foster child that the mother had adopted).
- Loss of parental advice, guidance, nurture and support to an adult child with legal difficulties who lost his primary emotional support.
- Spousal wrongful death claim.
- Loss of consortium for the husband, which he waived upon settlement.
The mother’s settlement was paid by the hospital and the anesthesiologist.
Complicating issues in the litigation:
- The split representation of mother and baby was due to ongoing difficulties between the surviving husband, who is a convicted felon, and the mother’s family. This resulted in the sister of the birth mother representing her sister both as guardian while alive and as administrator of the estate after death. The surviving spouse represented the interests of the child in his capacity as natural guardian, as well as his own loss of consortium claim.
- In attempting to prove that death in 2012 was due to malpractice in 2006, we attempted to obtain the records concerning her death. But those records were lost to flooding from Hurricane Sandy just weeks after she died. We relied instead on testimony from memory of the physician who had signed the death certificate who remembered the patient.
- The federal government claimed (via a certification from the U.S. Attorney’s office) that one of the doctors that had been initially sued was its employee, and therefore could not be sued in state court, but had to be sued in federal court. The defendants, thereafter, tried to claim that the malpractice was the fault of this doctor. Subsequently, it was found that the certification was in error.
- The adoption papers of one of the mother’s other children couldn’t be located by the husband, which was necessary for him to have a new legal guardian. This forced delays in the court proceedings to have an estate established after the mother died.
At one point or another, this matter were heard in the following courts: Supreme Court, Surrogates Court, Family Court and the Appellate Division.
Other brain injury cases that this office has handled are here:
$3.45M – Brooklyn Medical Malpractice – Brain Damage After Surgery
A 76-year-old Brooklyn man (2012) went to a Manhattan hospital for hip replacement surgery. In the recovery room he had unexplained pain and then lapsed into a coma.
$1.87M – Brooklyn Medical Malpractice – Brachial Plexus Injury During Liposuction Stroke and Hemorrhage
For a Brooklyn woman (2001) who suffered nerve injury to right arm during liposuction and then a stroke after she hemorrhaged and one week coma. Settled during jury deliberations.
$1.295M – Bronx Medical Malpractice — Hospital Negligence — Failure To Admit Man With Impending Stroke
Recovery for negligence in failing to diagnose and treat an impending stroke in a Bronx man, resulting in left-sided weakness and right-sided numbness.
$625K – Dutchess Medical Malpractice — Failure To Diagnose Brain Tumor — Brain Damage
Failure to diagnose and treat a slow growing meningioma in the head, in Poughkeepsie.
Other Wrongful Death cases:
$550K – Nursing Home Negligence – Broken Hoyer lift.
The sling seat of a Hoyer lift broke, dropping a 70-year-old nursing home resident to the ground in 2016, with numerous fractures and death a year later. Settled March 2022 during trial.
$510K – Brooklyn Wrongful Death and Medical Malpractice.
Pre-trial settlement, May 2024. Failure to diagnose and treat obstructed bile duct from infected gallstones, leading to sepsis and death.
$400K – Queens Medical Malpractice — Hernia Repair, Lacerated Liver, and Ruptured Spleen — Failure To Properly Type Blood — Wrongful Death
Settlement, mid-trial (1997), for the family of a 56-year-old Queens seamstress who bled to death during surgery when her liver was negligently lacerated (in New York, one can not be compensated for grief, only for monetary loss and pain and suffering).
$285K – Westchester Hospital Malpractice – Doctor Error – Wrongful Death
Hospital malpractice and doctor error when catheter placed in carotid artery instead of jugular vein, causing wrongful death of 87 year old Westchester man
A synopsis of New York’s wrongful death law.
Other New York medical malpractice cases handled by the Turkewitz Firm at this link.
