Birth Injury Verdict Cut From $29.7 Million To $26.5 Million Under Idaho's Damages Cap
After trial: The $3,750,000 the jury assigned as the hospital's share of the child's noneconomic damages was cut to approximately $573,000 under Idaho's noneconomic damages cap, I.C. 6-1603, because the jury found the hospital merely negligent rather than reckless. Dr. Donald's share of noneconomic damages was not capped, since the jury found him reckless. Both figures are the Idaho Supreme Court's own; the roughly $26,538,077 total is what the jury's award comes to once they are applied, and no record we could find states the amount of the judgment finally entered. The Kirklands challenged the cap as unconstitutional and the Idaho Supreme Court upheld it in 2000 on a certified question arising from this case. What was ultimately paid has not been confirmed in any available record.
Won by Luvera Law Firm.
In 1999, a federal jury in Boise found that Dr. Ian Ross Donald had punctured a fetal blood vessel during an amniocentesis on Sandy Kirkland, causing internal bleeding that went undetected for about sixteen hours and left her son with severe brain damage and spastic quadriplegia. The jury awarded $29,715,077, finding Donald 75 percent at fault and reckless and Wood River Medical Center 25 percent at fault and merely negligent, while clearing Sandy's other treating physician entirely. Because Idaho's noneconomic damages cap does not apply to a defendant a jury finds reckless, only the hospital's share of noneconomic damages was reduced, leaving roughly $26,538,077 of the award standing. The Idaho Supreme Court later upheld the cap's constitutionality on a certified question from the case. Paul Luvera, of the firm now known as Luvera Law Firm, represented the Kirkland family at trial.
What happened
In August 1995, Sandy Kirkland went into premature labor and was taken to Wood River Medical Center. She was sent to Dr. Ian Ross Donald, a Ketchum obstetrician, for an amniocentesis to check her baby's condition. Dr. Donald performed the procedure by passing the needle through the placenta, and in doing so punctured a fetal blood vessel.
According to the trial record, Dr. Donald did not tell Sandy's primary physician, Dr. Randall Coriell, or the nurses monitoring her at the medical center's Hailey campus that he had gone through the placenta and drawn fetal blood on the needle. For roughly sixteen hours, no one recognized what was happening. Sandy was hooked to a fetal heart monitor intermittently through the night of August 16, and nobody noticed the flat line it was tracing while her son bled internally.
The baby lost about half his blood supply before anyone caught the problem. By the time an emergency cesarean section was performed, it was too late to prevent the damage. He was born with severe brain injury and spastic quadriplegia that would require lifelong care.
The Kirklands sued Blaine County Medical Center, doing business as Wood River Medical Center, along with Dr. Donald and Dr. Coriell, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho in Boise. The case went to trial before Judge Edward J. Lodge and lasted a month. The jury cleared Dr. Coriell entirely and deliberated only four hours before returning its verdict in June 1999. It found Dr. Donald 75 percent at fault and reckless, and Wood River Medical Center 25 percent at fault and simply negligent. The jury awarded a total of $29,715,077: $11,215,077 in economic damages and $15,000,000 in noneconomic damages to the child, plus $3,500,000 in noneconomic damages to Sandy and Quinn Kirkland for their own loss.
Idaho law caps noneconomic damages, but the cap does not apply to a defendant a jury finds reckless. Because Dr. Donald was found reckless, his 75 percent share of the noneconomic award stood untouched. Wood River Medical Center's 25 percent share got no such exception. As the Idaho Supreme Court described the arithmetic, the statute limited the child's recovery of noneconomic damages against the hospital to approximately $573,000 instead of the $3,750,000 the jury had assigned. That takes about $3,177,000 off the jury's total and leaves roughly $26,538,077 standing.
'The jury clearly believed what Dr. Coriell had to say,' plaintiffs' attorney Paul Luvera told the Idaho Mountain Express after the verdict. 'There's no other way to interpret the verdict.'
The Kirklands challenged the constitutionality of Idaho's damages cap, and the federal judge certified the question to the Idaho Supreme Court. In 2000 the state's highest court upheld the cap against the jury trial, special legislation and separation of powers challenges the family raised. That ruling still governs how the cap applies in Idaho malpractice cases.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Idaho Mountain Express, June 16, 1999: verdict amount, jury's fault findings, quotes plaintiffs' attorney Paul Luvera by name
- 2.Idaho Supreme Court opinion, Kirkland v. Blaine County Medical Center, 134 Idaho 464, 4 P.3d 1115 (June 29, 2000), via CourtListener: counsel of record block naming Luvera, Barnett, Brindley of Seattle for respondents; the $29,715,077 verdict and its itemization; the $573,000 and $3,750,000 cap figures; Judge Edward J. Lodge; the holding that I.C. 6-1603 is constitutional
- 3.Leagle mirror of the same Idaho Supreme Court opinion: full case caption and the counsel of record block naming Luvera, Barnett, Brindley
- 4.MoreLaw case report (reader-submitted, corroboration only): case number CV97-237-S, U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, the trans-placental amniocentesis and loss of half the blood supply, spastic quadriplegia, and Paul N. Luvera as plaintiff's counsel
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