$30.95 Million Ohio Birth Injury Verdict Against Miami Valley Hospital After Uterine Rupture During Labor

Renetha Stanziano came to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton in December 2000 to deliver her son. She had delivered a previous child by cesarean section and was attempting a vaginal birth this time, a course known to carry an elevated risk of uterine rupture. The labor and delivery staff knew her history.

The family's case was that the staff failed at the safeguards her condition demanded. Nurses did not properly monitor the labor and kept administering Pitocin, a drug that intensifies contractions, even after her uterus became hyperstimulated. The attending physician was not told about her abnormal contraction pattern. Her uterus ruptured. Cut off from oxygen through the placenta, her son went an estimated 18 to 20 minutes without oxygen before delivery.

The boy survived with severe cerebral palsy and permanent brain damage. He cannot walk or speak, is fed through a tube, and requires care around the clock.

The family sued Miami Valley Hospital, the attending obstetrician Dr. Van Steenwyk, and her group, Contemporary Obstetrics and Gynecology, in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. The Lawrence Firm, which now practices as Lawrence, Beirne & Lewis, tried the case for the family, with Patrick Beirne serving as co-counsel. The trial ran four weeks before Judge Timothy O'Connell.

On July 2, 2009, the jury returned a verdict of $30,953,181 in compensatory damages, with nearly $26 million of it designated for the boy's future medical care. The jury placed fault solely on the hospital. It found neither Dr. Van Steenwyk nor her practice group liable. Coverage at the time described the award as the largest medical malpractice verdict ever returned in Ohio.

The number the jury wrote down is not the number the hospital paid. The compensatory verdict left a punitive damages phase still to be tried, and before that phase went forward the parties reached a settlement. The agreement ended the case, eliminated the punitive phase, and foreclosed any appeal. Lawyers on both sides confirmed the settlement but said its terms were confidential, and the Dayton Daily News reported it was unlikely the hospital would pay the full verdict amount. The family received less than $30,953,181. How much less has never been made public.

What the verdict established still stands on its own terms: after four weeks of evidence, twelve jurors found that the hospital's handling of a known high risk labor caused a child's brain injury, and they priced a lifetime of his care at just under $31 million. The boy was eight years old when they did.