$10.2 Million Verdict Over a Pitocin-Related Birth Injury at Ascension All Saints Hospital
After trial: Wisconsin caps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases at $750,000. No source reviewed confirms whether that cap was applied to this verdict at judgment, so the $10.2 million reported here is the jury's verdict, not a confirmed final judgment amount.
Won by Beam Legal Team LLC.
A Racine County jury awarded a family $10.2 million after finding that a doctor and Ascension All Saints Hospital mismanaged Pitocin during labor, causing brain damage in the newborn that has lasted into childhood.
What happened
The mother, Monica Cerna, went into labor at Ascension All Saints Hospital in Racine, Wisconsin. To speed the labor along, hospital staff administered Pitocin, a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin that is used routinely to strengthen and accelerate contractions. The family's case centered on how that drug was managed once it was started: Pitocin was given, they alleged, without the mother being told, and at a dosage that drove contractions to an excessive level and kept them there for hours.
Pitocin is not a drug that can simply be dosed and left alone. Because it can overstimulate the uterus, the standard of care requires close monitoring of both the contractions it produces and the fetal heart rate, with the dose adjusted or stopped if the baby shows signs of distress. The family's attorney, Matthew Patterson of Beam Legal Team, argued at trial that the standard of care governing Pitocin was not followed in this case, and that what happened to the child was the result of carelessness rather than an unavoidable complication of labor.
The baby was delivered by cesarean section not breathing and with a minimal pulse. She was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit and later to a children's hospital for further treatment. Brain imaging showed lasting damage, the kind of injury that follows when a baby's brain is deprived of adequate oxygen during the period surrounding delivery. Patterson described the outcome as totally preventable.
The defendants named at trial were the obstetrician, Dr. Christina Sullivan, D.O., and Ascension All Saints Hospital, Inc. The case had been filed roughly six years before it reached a jury, a timeline not unusual for birth injury litigation, where the full extent of a child's neurological outcome often cannot be assessed, and therefore cannot be fully litigated, until the child is older. On February 10, 2025, the Racine County jury returned a verdict of $10.2 million for the family.
Wisconsin caps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases at $750,000. That cap has applied to jury verdicts against Wisconsin healthcare providers for years, and it would ordinarily be relevant to a verdict this size if a substantial share of the $10.2 million represents pain-and-suffering and similar noneconomic damages rather than the economic cost of the child's future medical care and lost earning capacity. No source reviewed for this case confirms whether the cap was applied to reduce the verdict at the judgment stage, what the composition of the award was between economic and noneconomic damages, or what final amount, if any, was actually entered or paid. The $10.2 million reported here is the jury's verdict. Whether a reduced figure was later entered as the final judgment is unconfirmed.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Beam Legal Team LLC
All Beam Legal Team LLC proven verdicts →A Midland County jury awarded $31.6 million to the family of a girl left with cerebral palsy, spastic quadriplegia, and a seizure disorder after staff at MyMichigan Medical Center-Midland failed to stop Pitocin or deliver her by emergency cesarean despite fetal monitor strips showing distress, in what local coverage described as the first courtroom win for a medical malpractice plaintiff in the county's history.
Related medical malpractice verdicts
A Utah judge entered a $951 million default judgment against Steward Health Care after newly trained nurses, an excessive Pitocin drip, and a delayed C-section at Jordan Valley Medical Center left a newborn permanently brain damaged.
A Gainesville jury awarded $900 million, including $700 million in punitive damages, to stroke survivor Joseph Webb over neglect at the University Place Care and Rehabilitation Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case tried against defaulted Trans Healthcare entities with no defense present, but Florida's First District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment in 2013 because the trial court had refused to let a defense lawyer appear, and the money was never collected; the estate's claim was later resolved for a small share of a multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.
A Clark County jury ordered Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay $524 million after finding the UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries negligently credentialed a gastroenterologist whose unsafe injection practices at his Las Vegas endoscopy clinics caused the largest medically caused hepatitis C outbreak in American history.
A Kansas City jury awarded ovarian cancer patient Georgia Hayes $225 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages against pharmacist Robert Courtney, who had diluted chemotherapy drugs for profit. The trial judge later reduced the award to roughly $330 million, and Hayes collected almost nothing from Courtney himself, whose assets had been seized by the federal government. Courtney was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, and drug makers Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb later paid $71 million to settle victims' claims.