Cook County Jury Awards $101 Million in West Suburban Medical Center Birth Injury Case

In 2014, an expectant mother arrived at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Illinois, roughly 34 weeks into her pregnancy. She told staff her baby had stopped moving. The hospital placed her on external fetal monitoring and ordered an ultrasound. For about six hours, the monitoring strips and the imaging pointed to a baby in distress, and no one acted on what they showed.

No physician was alerted while there was still time to respond. The emergency cesarean section that could have spared the child was never ordered during that window. By the time the baby was delivered, the damage was done.

The boy was born with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, a brain injury caused by a loss of oxygen. He cannot speak, walk, or sit up on his own, and he needs care every hour of every day. Physicians expect him to live a normal lifespan, which means decades of complete dependence on others.

Clifford Law Offices brought the family's case in Cook County Circuit Court at the Daley Center, before Judge Robert E. Senechalle Jr. The trial team of Keith Hebeisen, Bradley Cosgrove, Sarah King, and Charles Haskins spent about a month in trial. Their experts testified that the child would have been born healthy if nurses and other staff had reported the monitoring abnormalities to a doctor and a cesarean had followed. "Communication breakdowns are the number one reason that patients in America are injured by medical negligence," King told reporters.

A jury of six men and six women deliberated for six hours. It returned a verdict of about $101 million against the hospital and its staff. Reporters described it as the largest medical malpractice verdict in Illinois in 2019.

The family did not collect the full sum. Before the verdict came down, both sides had signed a high-low agreement that capped damages at $50 million if the jury awarded more than that. Under the agreement, the family received $50 million. Tenet Healthcare, the company that then owned West Suburban Medical Center, did not appeal.