Arapahoe County Jury Awards $17.8 Million After Newborn Suffers Brain Damage From Medication Error at Children's Hospital Colorado

Naomi Pressey was born with a congenital heart defect, the kind surgeons at Children's Hospital Colorado correct routinely. Four days after birth, in February 2008, a pediatric anesthesiologist administered an incorrect dose of prostaglandin ahead of the procedure. Naomi went into cardiac arrest on the operating table.

Resuscitation took 33 minutes. The prolonged oxygen deprivation caused a severe hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. Naomi developed cerebral palsy along with significant cognitive and motor impairment. She requires around-the-clock supervised care, supplemental oxygen, and daily abdominal injections. Her intellectual development, doctors concluded, will not progress beyond the level she reached as a very young child.

The family retained Jim Puga of Leventhal Puga Braley and filed suit in Arapahoe County. After a two-week trial in March 2015, the jury found Children's Hospital Colorado negligent and awarded $17.8 million, which Puga said would 'be just about enough to take care of her for the rest of her life.' The award was reported at the time as the largest medical malpractice jury verdict in Colorado history.

Children's Hospital indicated it would appeal. The trial court subsequently reduced the award to $14.3 million. On appeal, the Colorado Court of Appeals denied the hospital's challenge on liability but reduced the damages further, to $11.9 million, while affirming that the case warranted exceeding Colorado's standard $1 million damages cap given Naomi's lifetime care requirements. A federal court later upheld the $11.9 million judgment against the hospital's insurer, Lexington Insurance Co.

The family is from Colorado Springs. At the time of the 2015 verdict, Naomi was seven years old.