$31M Medical Malpractice Verdict
Last week, a jury in Dayton, Ohio rendered a $31 million verdict against Miami Valley Hospital. It is believed to be the largest jury award for a medical malpractice case in Ohio history.
However, the family of the severely injured boy who was the plaintiff in the case and the hospital reached a settlement while the jury was deliberating. The settlement was confidential, meaning the amount cannot be disclosed, but it was almost certainly for far less than the $31 million verdict.
According to the attorneys for the family, nearly $26 million of the jury’s award was for future medical care for the boy, now 8, who was born Dec. 11, 2000 at the hospital. He suffered “permanent, irreversible brain damage,” during his birth, according to the lawsuit filed by his family in 2006. The lawsuit included Dr. Kedrin E. Van Steenwyk and Contemporary Obstetrics and Gynecology, his medical group, as defendants, but the jury found that the doctor was not liable for what happened to the boy, placing all of the blame on the hospital.
The boy, whose name has remained confidential, has severe cerebral palsey as a result of oxygen deprivation during birth--which the lawsuit alleged was forseeable and preventable for several reasons. He uses a feeding tube, he cannot speak, and he is not ambulatory and has trouble holding anything in his hands, according the family's attorney. Although he is badly disabled, he is alert and can recognize family members. When he needs something, he communicates by kicking.
He will never be able to work, and the parents are now “24-7 health-care givers,” according the the family's attorney.
According to Shawn Cantley, an experienced Kentucky medical malpractice attorney, large medical malpractice verdicts such as this one are very rare in the U.S., and are especially rare in the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana region. "Whenever you see a large medical malpractice verdict, it almost always involves a case with very large hard economic costs to the injured person and their family, such as necessary future medical treatment or the lost ability to work and earn a living in the future."
