Dempsey v. Gwinnett Hospital System
Jan 25, 2013OUTCOME: $13.9 Million; Confidential Settlement
On January 25th, Hunter Hillin of Hillin Law, PLLC in Austin, Texas won a verdict of $13.9 million dollars against Gwinnett Medical Center based on a claim that during labor, medical personnel failed t ... o intervene and rescue a baby who was experiencing oxygen deprivation for two hours prior to birth. This is the largest medical malpractice verdict ever in the history of Gwinnett County. The hospital staff misread the fetal heart rate tracing. The child was close to death at the time she was born. Due to excellent work at resuscitation, she survived but unfortunately developed cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, and mental retardation as a result of the damage done to her brain in labor. She is now 10 years old but only has the mental capability of a much younger child. The doctors who took care of the child when she was a newborn were never told that there were problems in labor, so they looked for another explanation. Though they never could find evidence of the cause, they had investigated meningitis as a potential cause. That investigation turned into a “diagnosis” that found its way into the medical records that followed the child for the next ten years and took on a life of its own. Even today, this myth would have continued if Mr. Hillin, as lead counsel at trial, had not proved in court through medical expert testimony that the true cause of this child’s problems was oxygen deprivation caused by the neglect of the medical personnel during labor, rather than by meningitis.
