$52 Million Judgment After 11-Hour Delay Before Emergency Cesarean Leaves Newborn With Cerebral Palsy

Lisa Ewing arrived at University of Chicago Medical Center in April 2004, forty weeks pregnant, and was admitted after reporting decreased fetal movement. Fetal heart monitors showed a non-reassuring tracing, a warning sign that a baby may not be getting enough oxygen. Rather than move to an immediate cesarean section, the medical team induced labor with Cervidil. The troubling heart tracing continued for roughly 11 hours before an emergency cesarean was finally performed, nearly 12 hours after Ewing was admitted.

Her son was born with severe hypoxic brain damage. He was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy and required round-the-clock care. By the time the case went to trial, twelve years later, he could not walk, could not form complete sentences, and functioned, according to trial evidence, well below the level typical for his age.

The family sued the hospital and sixteen individual medical professionals in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging roughly twenty separate errors in the handling of the delivery. The claims against the individual doctors and nurses were later dismissed voluntarily, and the trial went forward against the medical center alone. The hospital's lawyers argued that an infection contracted more than a day before Ewing arrived explained the brain injury, pointing to placental pathology showing chorioamnionitis, and that the timing of the delivery changed nothing. The verdict report on the trial lists the family's trial counsel as Geoffrey Fieger of Fieger Law and Matthew Patterson, then practicing at Beam & Raymond Associates in Chicago, the firm now known as Beam Legal Team. They countered that there was no infection and that oxygen deprivation during the delayed delivery was the sole cause.

The trial ran nearly a month. On June 29, 2016, the jury deliberated about four hours before returning a verdict of $53 million: $346,000 for past medical expenses, $7.25 million for future medical care, $28,852,000 for future caretaking, $2.7 million for lost earning capacity, and $11,080,800 combined for pain and suffering, disfigurement, shortened life expectancy, and emotional distress. Local reporting at the time called it one of the largest medical malpractice awards in Cook County history.

The hospital did not accept the result. It said it strongly disagreed with the verdict and asked for a mistrial, arguing that statements made by Fieger during trial had improperly swayed the jury. Cook County Circuit Judge John Kirby rejected that request in December 2016, finding that the hospital had received a fair trial and that the jury's award was grounded in the evidence presented. Kirby did trim the verdict by $950,000, about two percent, entering final judgment at $52,050,000 in early January 2017. Illinois has not capped noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases since the state Supreme Court struck that cap down in 2010, so the reduction here was a court-ordered correction rather than a statutory cap.

After the ruling, the hospital said it would appeal and continue trying to reduce the award. No independent source reviewed for this story documents the outcome of any further appeal, whether the judgment was paid, or whether the parties reached a later resolution.