Judge awards $7.1 million in medical-care negligence case

Posted On:   24 May 2018

West Virginia, US – 5th April, 2018: A federal judge has awarded $7.1 million to a woman and her young daughter in a negligence lawsuit that alleged her child suffered irreversible brain damage as a result of improper treatment when she was born.

In a 26-page bench-trial order finding, Chief U.S. District Judge Gina Groh cited attending physician Sarah Hardy for failure to meet the "appropriate standard of care" in causing the alleged damages to Kayla Butts' newborn child in October 2013 in Martinsburg.

The judge awarded $224,478.98 to Butts for past medical bills and past services rendered over four years, and $6,912,412.49 to her 4-year-old daughter for future lost earning capacity, future health care costs and noneconomic damages, court records said.

A $7,136,891.47 judgment against the defendant was entered Feb. 22, records said.

Hardy and fellow Shenandoah Valley Medical System Inc. employees Tracy Swalm and Rebecca Pfender, along with Berkeley Medical Center; West Virginia University Hospital Inc.; Shenandoah Women’s Health Center; Shenandoah Community Health Center; Shenandoah Midwives; physician Avinash Purohit; nurses Sara Spurgeon, Shelly Palkovic and Sonya Justice; and the government initially were named in the federal lawsuit.

All of the defendants except for the government ultimately were dismissed from the case, court records said. At least some of the defendants were deemed eligible for coverage in the case under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

U.S. Attorney Bill Powell's office and Berkeley Medical Center officials declined to comment Tuesday about the case. Officials with Shenandoah Community Health Center couldn't be reached for comment.

In determining the appropriate award for damages, the judge cited evidence that demonstrated the child "has no prospect whatsoever of approaching normal development; will not graduate from high school with any marketable skills; will remain completely and permanently disabled from any type of meaningful, gainful employment; will need continuous safety supervision; [and] will not be able to make any life decisions on her own; and she is going to be dependent on a caretaker, conservator or guardian to make decisions on her behalf.

"She will never be able to walk without a walker or some sort of assistance. It is likely she will suffer from seizures. She needs physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy to maximize her basic functional skills."

Even with all of the impediments, the judge also said that the child has a normal life expectancy because none of the conditions are likely to cause an early death, Groh said.

Groh concluded that Hardy should have transferred the newborn child from Berkeley Medical Center to Winchester (Va.) Medical Center's neonatal-intensive-care unit the same afternoon she was born.

The judge noted that Butts, then 16, had a difficult pregnancy, which included a bacterial infection, fever and multiple occurrences of pre-term labor, including one occasion when she was flown to Morgantown, W.Va., for care.

Groh also noted that the doctor believed that the transfer should have occurred, but allowed a nurse manager to persuade her not to transfer the newborn to another hospital.

As a result, the infant continued to struggle breathing, became cyanotic and developed cerebral palsy, the judge said.

Though Groh found that the services that Hardy provided fell below the applicable standard of care and caused the damages alleged by the plaintiffs, the judge also noted that Berkeley Medical Center didn't have the equipment and staff members to care for Butts' child.

Source: https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/tri_state/west_virginia/w-va-judge-awards-million-in-medical-care-negligence-case/article_113b15da-378e-11e8-a807-778e2e7e9bca.html