$14.5 Million Verdict for Child Born at 25 Weeks After MetroHealth Delayed Emergency C-Section

Stephanie Stewart came to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland three separate times in the span of a few days, each time experiencing preterm labor at roughly 24 to 25 weeks of pregnancy. She had delivered a prior child by cesarean section and asked, on each admission, whether she could have a repeat C-section. Each time, staff sent her home or allowed labor to continue. On the final admission, after her membranes had ruptured, she again requested a cesarean. The attending obstetrician declined, pointing to fetal monitor readings that initially showed the baby as stable.

Over the next three and a half hours, the baby's condition on the monitors deteriorated steadily. Only then did staff move to an emergency C-section. By the time her son, Alijah Jones, was delivered at 25 weeks gestation, he had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and visual impairment. Medical experts who reviewed the case agreed he would require 24-hour attendant care for the rest of his life.

Stewart filed suit against MetroHealth in 2004. The case was dismissed and refiled in 2011, and it eventually went to trial in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. Attorney Michael Becker of The Becker Law Firm represented the plaintiffs. At trial, Becker argued that the hospital deviated from its own obstetrical emergency protocol by failing to act on repeated signs of fetal distress and by disregarding a patient's informed request for a delivery method she was entitled to choose. Plaintiffs presented expert testimony that a timely cesarean, consistent with the standard of care, would have prevented the hypoxic injury responsible for Alijah's condition.

The jury returned a verdict of $14,500,000. The breakdown included $500,000 for Alijah's past economic damages, $5,000,000 for his noneconomic losses, $8,000,000 for his projected future economic needs including lifetime attendant care, and $1,000,000 for Stewart's own noneconomic damages.

Because MetroHealth is a political subdivision under Ohio law, the trial court applied statutory caps on noneconomic damages and required offsets for collateral source payments, reducing the judgment to $3,451,000. The plaintiffs appealed. The Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals initially ruled for the family in a July 2016 panel opinion, but that decision was vacated. In the controlling en banc decision issued August 24, 2017 (2017-Ohio-7329), the court held that the collateral-source offset could not be applied to the future-economic award as the trial court had done and reinstated the jury's full $8,000,000 future-damages figure. Added to the $500,000 capped noneconomic award, that brought the total judgment to $8,500,000, which the case was remanded to enter.