Appeals Court Restores $8.5 Million Judgment for Child Born at 25 Weeks After Cleveland Hospital Delay
After trial: Reduced from $14.5 million by the $250,000 per-person cap on non-economic damages under R.C. 2744.05(C) and, in part, a collateral-source offset; the Eighth District reinstated the $8 million future economic award on reconsideration and ordered judgment of $8.5 million on remand.
A Cuyahoga County jury found MetroHealth Medical Center and its obstetrician departed from the standard of care in a high-risk pregnancy, leaving a child born at 25 weeks with cerebral palsy, developmental delays and visual impairment. The jury awarded $14.5 million. Ohio's cap on non-economic damages against political subdivisions and a collateral-source offset cut it to $3.451 million at the trial court, and in 2017 the Eighth District reinstated the future economic award, for a total of $8.5 million.
What happened
A Cuyahoga County jury found that MetroHealth Medical Center and obstetrician Steven Weight, M.D., failed to meet the standard of care during a high-risk pregnancy, and it awarded $14.5 million to a child born at 25 weeks and his mother. After statutory caps and a long appeal, the Eighth District Court of Appeals ordered judgment of $8.5 million on remand in August 2017.
The mother had delivered an earlier son by emergency Caesarean at 32 weeks. In March 2003 she went through three episodes of preterm labor at MetroHealth. After the third, with some dilation and that history, the hospital and Dr. Weight recommended an elective Caesarean. The baby had just passed 24 weeks and was considered viable. Because she was bleeding, the delivery was put off and she was observed, then discharged before the bleeding had fully stopped.
Ten days later she came back with contractions. Her cervix was dilated four millimeters and the fetal monitor showed a steady heartbeat, so Dr. Weight did not deliver immediately and finished his office hours. Over the next four hours the baby's heartbeat grew more erratic, and a nurse called Dr. Weight and other obstetricians 15 times. When he returned, he suspected the baby was becoming asphyxiated, testing confirmed it, and he delivered by Caesarean at once. The baby was not breathing and needed nearly 30 minutes of resuscitation. Tests showed he had lost almost 40 percent of his circulating blood volume in those four hours, and an ultrasound found a blood clot from a brain bleed.
The boy has cerebral palsy, developmental delays and visual impairment. Medical experts on both sides agreed he will need 24-hour attendant care for the rest of his life.
Liability was contested at trial. The family's experts said the brain bleed occurred hours before birth and that a timely Caesarean would have minimized its effects. MetroHealth's experts blamed a group B strep infection that reached the baby's lungs, and said earlier delivery would not have changed the outcome. The jury sided with the family. It awarded the child $500,000 for past economic loss, $8 million for future economic loss and $5 million in non-economic damages, and awarded his mother $1 million in non-economic damages. Pamela Pantages of Nurenberg Paris Heller & McCarthy appeared for the family with co-counsel Michael Becker and Paul Flowers.
Because MetroHealth is a county hospital, Ohio's political-subdivision statute applied. The trial court capped each non-economic award at $250,000 and offset collateral sources, which cut the total to $3.451 million. On reconsideration, the Eighth District upheld the caps and the offset statute as constitutional, but held that the offset of future economic damages was error. It reinstated the full $8 million future award. The offset that wiped out the $500,000 past economic award stood, so with the two capped $250,000 awards the judgment came to $8.5 million. The court also rejected MetroHealth's cross-appeal, including its argument that the verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence, and noted that the judgment is backed by the full faith and credit of Cuyahoga County.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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