Harford County Jury Awards $13.3 Million After Hospital Staff Ignored Fetal Distress Signals for 17 Hours

On July 26, 2004, Kenyetta Lewis arrived at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, Maryland, to have labor induced. She had elevated blood pressure before admission, but hospital staff proceeded to administer Pitocin to stimulate contractions. Over the next 17 hours her hypertension persisted and the fetal heart monitor produced readings that her attorneys would later argue plainly signaled distress. No cesarean section was ordered.

When delivery finally occurred, the infant suffered an intracranial hemorrhage. The bleed caused permanent brain damage and intellectual disability. He grew up with cognitive impairments that will require lifelong care.

Lawyers H. Briggs Bedigian, Jon Stefanuca, and E. Merritt Lentz of Gilman and Bedigian, LLC tried the case over two weeks in Harford County Circuit Court. Their theory rested on two overlapping failures. First, Dr. Arthur Morey, the attending obstetrician, was negligent and did not obtain informed consent from Lewis about the risks of continuing labor given her condition. Second, nursing staff independently failed to properly administer Pitocin and failed to act on the fetal monitoring data that showed deteriorating conditions. A timely C-section, the plaintiffs argued, would have prevented the hemorrhage.

The jury agreed on both counts. On July 27, 2022, it awarded $13.3 million: $10.5 million for future medical care and expenses, $2 million for pain and suffering (subject to reduction under Maryland's statutory cap on non-economic damages), and the remainder for lost earning capacity. The University of Maryland Medical System, which owns Upper Chesapeake, said after the verdict that it was assessing its appeal options.

Upper Chesapeake Medical Center did appeal. In an unreported opinion reported by the Maryland Daily Record on April 30, 2026, the Appellate Court of Maryland reversed and remanded the case for a new hearing on the hospital's motion for a mistrial. The court found that the trial court erred by allowing the case to proceed without timely disclosing the terms of a Mary Carter Agreement, a pretrial settlement arrangement between certain defendants, and that the nondisclosure prejudiced the remaining defendant's ability to mount an effective defense. If the trial court grants a mistrial on remand, a new trial would follow; the $13.3 million verdict does not stand as a final judgment while that question is unresolved.