Nurses Ignored Pitocin Orders, Leaving Newborn with Spastic Quadriplegia: $18.27 Million Verdict

In 2007, Brittney Hamilton was admitted to T.J. Samson Community Hospital in Glasgow, Kentucky, to deliver her son Tristan. Her obstetrician had given standing orders: Pitocin was not to exceed 20 milli-units per minute, and contractions were to be kept to no more than four every ten minutes. The nurses exceeded those limits. The resulting uterine hyperstimulation cut off the oxygen supply to Tristan during delivery.

Tristan survived, but the oxygen deprivation caused a severe brain injury. He was later diagnosed with spastic quadriplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that affects all four limbs. The injury requires constant, lifelong care.

Brittney Hamilton filed suit in Barren Circuit Court in 2011, naming the hospital and the delivering obstetrician, Dr. Kelly Dirig, as defendants. The case turned on a factual dispute at the heart of the delivery room: the hospital's nurses claimed Dr. Dirig had ordered them to increase the Pitocin dose to high levels; Dr. Dirig, who was not a hospital employee, denied giving any such instruction. Attorneys Tyler Thompson and Liz Shepherd of Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd, Conway and Stanton argued that the nurses had a professional duty to follow the physician's documented standing orders and to seek clarification before deviating from them.

The case went to a twelve-person Barren County jury in November 2014. After roughly one hour of deliberations, ten of the twelve jurors found that the hospital had deviated from the accepted standard of care and that the deviation was a substantial cause of Tristan's injuries. The jury unanimously cleared Dr. Dirig of any liability. The total verdict came to $18,270,052.37, with damages covering future medical expenses, past and future pain and suffering, impairment of earning capacity, and past out-of-pocket costs.

The hospital challenged the verdict and raised a coverage dispute over whether its insurance was sufficient to satisfy the award. According to subsequent news reporting, the parties reached a settlement of $17.5 million in February 2015, with the hospital agreeing to drop its appeal. At the time of the verdict, Tyler Thompson told reporters that the money, while large in dollar terms, would need to cover Tristan's care across an entire lifetime.