$2 Million Verdict for Cerebral Palsy After OB-GYN Missed Premature Gestation and Withheld Steroids
Won by Gilman & Bedigian.
A Baltimore County jury awarded $2 million to the family of Maria Abid after her obstetrician failed to act on ultrasound evidence of premature gestation and withheld corticosteroids that could have supported lung development before Maria was born at 33 weeks, leaving her with cerebral palsy.
What happened
On April 18, 2006, Fatima Abid's water broke. She was 33 weeks pregnant. When she was admitted to St. Joseph Medical Center the following morning, her care team believed she was past 36 weeks and approaching full term. That belief was wrong, and the consequences were severe.
An ultrasound performed 12 days earlier had clearly documented the pregnancy at 33 weeks. Dr. Meera A. Rawtani, the treating obstetrician, did not act on that finding or inform the family that a gestational miscalculation might affect delivery decisions. Because the staff believed Fatima was near term, they did not administer corticosteroids, a standard intervention given when a preterm delivery is anticipated that accelerates lung maturation in the fetus. When Maria was born, her lungs were underdeveloped. She was transferred immediately to the neonatal intensive care unit, where a neonatologist confirmed delivery had occurred at 33 weeks. A delivery-room physician later contacted the NICU to report that Maria had been 'mistakenly delivered prematurely.'
Maria suffered oxygen deprivation from her underdeveloped lungs and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Her parents, Muhammad and Fatima Abid of Woodlawn, filed suit in Baltimore County Circuit Court in November 2013, naming both Dr. Rawtani and St. Joseph Medical Center as defendants. Plaintiffs alleged that the hospital's own records had been altered after the fact to misrepresent Maria's developmental status at birth.
H. Briggs Bedigian and Alicia J. Gipe of Gilman and Bedigian LLC tried the case before Judge Michael J. Finifter over ten days. A jury of six women deliberated for roughly two hours before returning a verdict in the Abid family's favor. The jury found Dr. Rawtani liable and awarded $2 million: $1.5 million for future medical expenses, $150,000 for past medical expenses, and $350,000 in non-economic damages. The jury found in favor of St. Joseph Medical Center on the claims brought against the hospital.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Gilman & Bedigian
All Gilman & Bedigian proven verdicts →A Philadelphia jury returned a $182.7 million verdict, later reaching $207.6 million with interest and upheld through the Pennsylvania Superior Court in July 2025, against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for a 45-minute delay in performing a C-section on a mother with a known uterine infection, leaving her child with permanent cerebral palsy.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $108.6 million to a boy who suffered permanent brain damage during a December 2018 forceps delivery at Einstein Medical Center, in a case tried by Gilman & Bedigian against Jefferson Health. Jefferson has vowed to appeal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is already reviewing the same liability doctrines in the firm's earlier $183 million Penn Medicine verdict, so the award is far from final.
A Baltimore City jury awarded $55 million after Johns Hopkins Hospital delayed an emergency cesarean section for more than two hours following a home-birth transfer, leaving infant Enzo Martinez with permanent cerebral palsy and profound neurological injuries.
A Baltimore County jury found that University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center performed an unjustified emergency cesarean section on a mother showing no confirmed signs of labor, delivering her son at 23 weeks and causing severe brain damage that will require lifelong care.
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