A birth injury is a serious medical condition resulting from complications during pregnancy and delivery. However, the most tragic birth injuries are those which could have been prevented by the attending medical staff but due to their negligence were not. In fact a lot of times birth injuries happen during the process of birth and could have been avoided by an efficient team of medical professionals. If you are parents of a child with life altering birth injuries you may want to continue reading this article to better understand your condition.
Was it Negligence?
The most crucial thing to note in a birth injury lawsuit is establishing weather that particular injury could have been avoided or not. In case the answer turns out to be in the affirmative, you have a valid case for litigation.
Who Is Responsible?
Now comes the time to deciding who was actually responsible for this birth injury. Was it the doctor? Or was it the attending staff like nurses. In a lot of cases multiple parties are liable for a childbirth injury. You can choose to sue the hospital who's staff was negligent as well as the employee in question. If the birth injury is the result of a medication error, the manufacturer of the medication and the doctor who prescribed it could be liable for a lawsuit.
Proving a Birth Injury Case
Once the lawsuit has been filed, it becomes necessary to establish the fact that the child's injury is the direct result of the health care providers negligence. This calls for an in-depth investigation demanding expert testimony regarding the conduct of a doctor, nurse,
medical technician, staff or any other medical professional involved.
Getting Compensation
No lawyer can predict the outcome of a lawsuit, let alone the amount of compensation that could be awarded. Compensations are usually calculated by the jury itself. This is done with the help of a life care planner and an economist. Together these professionals calculate the amount of money that will be adequate for the child's life long needs and medical care. A jury takes into account whether a healthcare giver breached the standard of care, thus resulting in birth injury. The formula used by the jury to award compensation is simple: Past medical expenses + Future medical expenses + Noneconomic damages = Verdict.
The easiest to prove are the past expenses, by way of medical bills. Calculating future medical expenses can be slightly tricky since it is extremely hard to tell what effects a birth injury might have on the overall health of a child. Still the child's doctors and other medical experts review the medical reports and based on their experience, education and expertise, they chalk out what “could” happen in the future and calculate the cost of it all there on. Last but not the least are the noneconomic damages. These are the toughest to calculate. The things taken under consideration while calculating noneconomic damages are different in every state and can cover emotional trauma, mental anguish, disability, humiliation and other emotional injuries the victims had to suffer. A jury needs to depend on their collective empathy and experience before coming to this conclusion.