6.25 Million Dollar Settlement Approved for 5½ Year Old Girl Paid By Advocate Christ Hospital for Birth Injury

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

After three weeks of trial, Cook County Judge Thomas Hogan approved a settlement of $6,250,000.00 for the benefit of a 5 ½ year old girl (Twin A) who was seriously injured when nurses and a third year resident at Advocate Christ Hospital, Oak Lawn, failed to properly monitor the labor and delivery of twins in January of 2002. The mother of the twins was scheduled for a planned caesarean section (c-section) on the morning of January 16, 2002. On January 15, 2002, she presented to Christ Hospital in labor and provided documentation that she was to have a c-section. Despite this, she was prepped for a vaginal delivery and was attended to by a nurse and the third year resident until the very end of labor. During the laboring process, there were almost two continuous hours with no adequate fetal monitor tracings for the twins — their conditions could not be verified by electronic monitoring strips. Following the vaginal delivery, Twin A, with intervention from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, was diagnosed with severe brain injury requiring constant care for the rest of her life. Twin B was born normal and healthy with no signs of distress or injury. Advocate Christ Hospital maintained that the cause of the child’s brain injury was a chronic twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome that took place in the two weeks prior to presentation at the hospital. The hospital further maintained that the mother never requested a c-section and, even if she had, her ingestion of food within three hours of presentation at the hospital made an elective c-section unreasonably dangerous and thus could not be performed.

Attorneys for the estate of the child, Donald J. Nolan, William J. Jovan and Thomas P. Routh of Nolan Law Group alleged that the resident and nurses’ failure to properly monitor the delivery and the hospital’s failure to supervise the resident and have an attending physician present at the high risk delivery, was the cause of the brain injury to Twin A. A separate claim against the mother’s obstetrician, not an employee of Advocate Christ Hospital, was not part of the settlement.

Nolan Law Group is a Chicago based personal injury law firm concentrating in aviation accidents, brain injury, medical malpractice, workers compensation, premises liability, product liability, construction negligence, and railroad and motor vehicle accidents. Advocate Christ Hospital was represented by Patricia Barker of Barker & Castro, LLC.

CASE NUMBER: 03 L 3697 Private Bank & Trust Co. v. Advocate Health and Hospital Corp.

JUDGE: The Honorable Thomas Hogan

Gross Settlement: $6,250,000.00

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