Johnson County Jury's $97.4 Million Birth Injury Verdict Reversed on Appeal

On August 11, 2018, Kathleen Kromphardt went into labor at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City. Her physician, Dr. Jill Goodman of Obstetric & Gynecologic Associates of Iowa City and Coralville, P.C., attempted to deliver the baby with forceps. When that failed, she switched to a Mityvac vacuum extractor. The package insert the family later showed jurors, written by the vacuum's manufacturer, told physicians not to use the device after a failed forceps attempt. The baby, identified in court filings by the initials S.K., was born with a fractured skull, a subdural hemorrhage, and ischemic brain damage.

S.K. developed seizures and facial nerve palsy soon after birth. By the time the case reached trial, he had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a learning disability. He could not walk without help and needed round the clock care, a condition his family expects to last the rest of his life.

The Kromphardts sued Goodman, her clinic, and Mercy Hospital in Iowa District Court for Johnson County. Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger tried the case alongside Jack Beam and Matt Patterson of Beam Legal Team. After a 14-day trial before Judge Kevin McKeever, the jury found the clinic and the hospital equally negligent and equally responsible. In March 2022 it awarded $97.4 million, reported to include $42 million for S.K.'s future medical and care costs, $11.6 million for lost future earnings, and $20 million each for his pain and suffering and for the loss of his ability to function. It was, at the time, the largest medical malpractice verdict in Iowa history.

Mercy Hospital's exposure had been capped at $7 million under a pretrial agreement with the family, and the hospital paid that amount. The clinic did not. Judge McKeever denied its motions for a new trial or a reduced verdict and ordered the judgment paid. Court filings put the clinic's share at more than $75.6 million. When the clinic and its malpractice insurer still had not paid months later, the Kromphardts' lawyers moved to execute the judgment against clinic property. The clinic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on October 31, 2022. Dr. Goodman said the filing was forced by what she called the family's aggressive collection tactics and maintained the clinic had done nothing wrong. The bankruptcy did not hold. On the family's motion, the bankruptcy court dismissed the clinic's Chapter 11 case in April 2023, and the clinic went ahead with its appeal, its insurer posting a bond while the case was pending.

The clinic appealed, arguing among other things that the trial court should never have let jurors see the vacuum's package insert, since the warning on it was hearsay never subject to cross examination. The Iowa Supreme Court agreed. In a decision filed November 8, 2024, the court held that admitting the insert was error, reversed the judgment against the clinic, and sent the case back to Johnson County for a new trial. No new trial date has been reported since the ruling. The reversal did not touch Mercy Hospital's payment, which the hospital made under its pretrial agreement with the family.