Kline & Specter Wins Appeal Preserving Record $207.6 Million Birth Injury Judgment Against Penn Hospital

In February 2018, Dajah Hagans arrived at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to deliver her son. She had chorioamnionitis, an infection of the membranes and fluid surrounding the baby, and the hospital staff knew it. Rather than move quickly toward delivery, they waited. By the time her son was born, he had suffered permanent brain damage. He was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Today he cannot walk or speak, relies on a feeding tube, and depends on others for nearly every part of daily life.

The case put before a Philadelphia jury turned on timing. The standard of care, the plaintiff's experts testified, required a prompt cesarean section once the infection was recognized. The staff instead delayed about 45 minutes. Had the baby been delivered sooner, those experts said, he would have avoided the neurological injury that now shapes his life. The trial record centered on that gap: what the providers knew, when they knew it, and what a careful delivery team would have done. Penn Medicine disputed both causation and the scale of any award. The jury was not persuaded.

On April 26, 2023, the jury returned a verdict of about $183 million. The award included $101 million for the lifetime cost of the boy's care, $70 million for future pain and suffering, $10 million for past pain and suffering, and $1.7 million for lost earning capacity. It was the largest medical malpractice verdict in Pennsylvania history, surpassing a $100 million mark that had stood since 2000.

Penn Medicine moved to overturn or reduce the verdict. Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright denied those post-trial motions, and with about $24.9 million in delay damages added, the judgment was molded to roughly $207.6 million. Kline & Specter handled the post-trial and appellate fight, where Charles Becker, who leads the firm's appellate practice, argued for the family alongside Shanin Specter and Andra Laidacker. The hospital argued that an award of this size was excessive and would strain care across the region. On July 10, 2025, a three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court unanimously affirmed the full $207.6 million judgment, holding that the award did not shock the conscience.