A Record $53 Million Cook County Verdict for a Delayed Delivery

In April 2004, Lisa Ewing arrived at the University of Chicago Medical Center at full term, worried that her baby was moving less than normal. A first-year resident examined her and recognized fetal distress. No obstetrician evaluated her for roughly the next 11 hours. By the time the hospital performed an emergency cesarean section, her son had gone too long without enough oxygen.

The boy was born with severe brain damage. It was later diagnosed as cerebral palsy together with a seizure disorder. He cannot walk and uses a wheelchair, he cannot speak in complete sentences, and he will need help with the basic tasks of daily life for as long as he lives.

The family sued the medical center in Cook County Circuit Court in 2013. Geoffrey Fieger and Jack Beam tried the case for them. The central question was simple: what happened during the hours when a mother in distress was left without an obstetrician.

The hospital did not concede that its care caused the injury. Its lawyers argued that an infection, not any delay, produced the cerebral palsy, and that the baby was born with normal oxygen levels, which would place the harm before delivery. Fieger and Beam answered that there was no real sign of the infection the defense described, and that the medical center's own neonatal records showed the newborn had suffocated from a lack of oxygen at birth.

On June 29, 2016, the jury sided with the family and returned $53 million. It was the largest birth-injury verdict in Cook County history. The award included about $28.8 million set aside for the lifetime of care the child will require, along with sums for past and future medical costs, the loss of a normal life, and a shortened life expectancy.

The medical center asked for a mistrial and then a new trial, claiming the proceedings had been unfair. Judge John P. Kirby rejected those motions and let the verdict stand. In early January 2017 he trimmed the total by $950,000 as a technical correction, bringing the judgment to $52,050,000. The hospital said it would appeal.