i hope this ridiculous verdict is either reversed or appealed. The doctors should have never helped this woman in the first place as she’s is obviously a money grubber. No matter what the doctors did she would have sued. People are so full of entitlement these days.
You obviously have no feelings for what it would be like to know that your child could have had a normal life but now is disabled because the Doctors tried to “push” the baby out and I have seen is done where they have litterly gotten on top of the mother and pushed!! – Do a C-section immediately for crying out loud we are talking about a human being. We won’t get rid of a fetus that not even visable to the human eye – but we are thinking it is OK to maime a perfectly developed human being during birth??????? There is no amount of money to change this…..
Someone else stated it correctly. We do not have all of the facts. There are a ton of emotions flying around. If the doctor is truly at fault then he should be penalized criminally, but here is another example of a jury acting on emotions when awarding damages. Another point, the lawyers will surely get their $6,000,000+. Not sure if anyone else raised this question, but why exactly did it take ten years for the mother to decide to sue?
$20m is a hard amount to justify, no matter how you rationalize it. The long and short is that lawyers have a huge conflict of interest when it comes to seeking damages, because their fees are directly tied to the amount of awards. We should outlaw contingent fees for legal services, as we have for most tax services. This conflict was realized by the IRS, because they understood that tax attorneys and CPAs have an inherent interest in contingent fees if they can effectively keep their clients’ tax below certain levels, and thereby “maximize” their value to their clients and command higher fees. What’s troubling is many these lawyers act like they’re gods and actually deserve these insane paydays. I don’t blame the mother here–she obviously went through a difficult birthing, and it’s hard to place full blame on a careful doctor (key being careful–negligence is what it is), and as previously stated, we simply don’t know all the facts. There are so many nuances that I have to believe the jury made a finding based on negligence of the doctor, otherwise I’ll lose what little faith I have in the legal system. What I do know is that the trial lawyers here got big payouts and they have a conflicting incentive to maximize those payouts with little to no regard for the incidental impact on society. This is why we need tort reform, since our overly litigious society is driving doctors (and other professionals) out of practice and making our country less and less competitive in the world markets. Yes, the issue here is not global competitiveness per se, and I’m not arguing to remove important legal protections, but I think it’s high time we re-examine the “system” and how it actually works.
I have experience with this physician. I was at the other end of the reproductive life cycle when I first saw Dr. Lisa Yang for intractable menstrual bleeding.
The doctor attempted an ablation, and claimed it would not seal. I should have gone to another physician at that point, but I trusted Dr. Yang. She recommended a complete hysterectomy. After asking many, many questions about the impacts of the surgery on my sexual health, I accepted her assurances that I would be “fine” after the surgery. When, the first signs of sexual dysfunction began to appear, Dr. Yang told me that it was because I had a “bad attitude.”
I eventually found a women’s sexual health specialist and invested significantly in remedial treatments for my surgically imposed sexual dysfunction.
I would never recommend this particular physician to anyone.
All people that are calling the claimants greedy…did you happen to notice what happened to this poor child?? How much would you want if this happened to your and your beloved baby????
Last Updated: 2:51 pm | Monday, May 19, 2008
Botched birth verdict: $22.6M
BY KIMBALL PERRY | KPERRY@ENQUIRER.COM
A Blue Ash woman whose baby was stuck in her birth canal for 13½ hours won $22.6 million Monday in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
A Hamilton County jury – which heard five weeks of testimony and deliberated for 3½ days – found physician Lisa Yang and her Springdale group of doctors, Group Health Associates, negligent in the case.
Jurors also found the doctor and her group knew or should have known their actions would have resulted in brain injuries during the Sept. 4, 1997, birth of Cassie Grow.
“The evidence was pretty compelling that this baby was not going to fit” through Heather Grow’s birth canal, the mother’s attorney, Patrick P.J. Beirne, of Covington, said Monday.
Yang, Group Health Associates and the hospital had argued they weren’t negligent.
In the summer of 1997, Heather Grow was pregnant with her first child. Her doctors told her she had a narrow pelvic arch. That became a major medical issue two weeks before she gave birth when doctors realized her child – at about nine pounds – was going to be big.
“The child got stuck. It was clear that she was pushed through an (opening) she couldn’t fit. And this went on for hours and hours,” Beirne said. “It was like trying to fit a watermelon through (an opening) the size of an apple.”
In addition to being a big baby in a small canal, the baby’s injuries also were caused because medical workers – supervised by Yang – continued to give the mother drugs to make the uterus contract, hoping to expel the baby. The result was a uterus contracting on the baby’s stuck head, causing brain damage.
“She was having contractions every one to two minutes for hours. It violates every medical textbook. It puts the baby and mom (in) danger,” said Mark Mueller, another Grow attorney, from Austin, Texas.
The mother was in labor from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., Beirne said, before the baby was delivered by Caesarian section.
“The doctor had a responsibility to ensure she had a safe delivery,” Mueller said.
The baby suffered brain damage that will impact her for life because her head was squeezed for so long.
Cassie, now 11, is a spastic quadriplegic. That means she has limited use of her limbs.
She can walk short distances but needs a walker. She can see but because the part of her brain that processes vision was damaged, her brain can’t properly interpret what her eyes see. She has problems using her hands and she is mildly retarded, Mueller said.
“These are permanent injuries,” Mueller said.
Jurors also found that Good Samaritan Hospital workers were negligent in the delivery, but didn’t order the hospital to pay money damages.
The jury ruled that Yang and Group Health Associates have to pay the Grow family $22,646,023.
The vast majority of that was $7,959,747 for Cassie’s future medical bills and $7.5 million for her future loss of ability to perform usual activities. She also was awarded $3 million for pain and suffering.
Neither Yang nor Group Health Associates could be reached Monday.
Print | Close Window | Copyright 2008, Enquirer.com
In 1997 doctors should have known better. You don’t take chances with babies lives. My neice had a baby that this happened to also and he only lived for 2 days. Taking care of a quardiplegic and the emotionally stress of it deserves this kind of settlement. I only wonder if this doctor should still be practicing. This is why Malpratice rates are so high, but insurance should not be a fall back for careless people.
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i hope this ridiculous verdict is either reversed or appealed. The doctors should have never helped this woman in the first place as she’s is obviously a money grubber. No matter what the doctors did she would have sued. People are so full of entitlement these days.
You obviously have no feelings for what it would be like to know that your child could have had a normal life but now is disabled because the Doctors tried to “push” the baby out and I have seen is done where they have litterly gotten on top of the mother and pushed!! – Do a C-section immediately for crying out loud we are talking about a human being. We won’t get rid of a fetus that not even visable to the human eye – but we are thinking it is OK to maime a perfectly developed human being during birth??????? There is no amount of money to change this…..
Someone else stated it correctly. We do not have all of the facts. There are a ton of emotions flying around. If the doctor is truly at fault then he should be penalized criminally, but here is another example of a jury acting on emotions when awarding damages. Another point, the lawyers will surely get their $6,000,000+. Not sure if anyone else raised this question, but why exactly did it take ten years for the mother to decide to sue?
$20m is a hard amount to justify, no matter how you rationalize it. The long and short is that lawyers have a huge conflict of interest when it comes to seeking damages, because their fees are directly tied to the amount of awards. We should outlaw contingent fees for legal services, as we have for most tax services. This conflict was realized by the IRS, because they understood that tax attorneys and CPAs have an inherent interest in contingent fees if they can effectively keep their clients’ tax below certain levels, and thereby “maximize” their value to their clients and command higher fees. What’s troubling is many these lawyers act like they’re gods and actually deserve these insane paydays. I don’t blame the mother here–she obviously went through a difficult birthing, and it’s hard to place full blame on a careful doctor (key being careful–negligence is what it is), and as previously stated, we simply don’t know all the facts. There are so many nuances that I have to believe the jury made a finding based on negligence of the doctor, otherwise I’ll lose what little faith I have in the legal system. What I do know is that the trial lawyers here got big payouts and they have a conflicting incentive to maximize those payouts with little to no regard for the incidental impact on society. This is why we need tort reform, since our overly litigious society is driving doctors (and other professionals) out of practice and making our country less and less competitive in the world markets. Yes, the issue here is not global competitiveness per se, and I’m not arguing to remove important legal protections, but I think it’s high time we re-examine the “system” and how it actually works.
What do they call the student that graduated LAST in their Medical Class?
They are called Doctor.
Be a wise consumer of medical care, it might save a life.
I have experience with this physician. I was at the other end of the reproductive life cycle when I first saw Dr. Lisa Yang for intractable menstrual bleeding.
The doctor attempted an ablation, and claimed it would not seal. I should have gone to another physician at that point, but I trusted Dr. Yang. She recommended a complete hysterectomy. After asking many, many questions about the impacts of the surgery on my sexual health, I accepted her assurances that I would be “fine” after the surgery. When, the first signs of sexual dysfunction began to appear, Dr. Yang told me that it was because I had a “bad attitude.”
I eventually found a women’s sexual health specialist and invested significantly in remedial treatments for my surgically imposed sexual dysfunction.
I would never recommend this particular physician to anyone.
All people that are calling the claimants greedy…did you happen to notice what happened to this poor child?? How much would you want if this happened to your and your beloved baby????
Print | Close Window
Last Updated: 2:51 pm | Monday, May 19, 2008
Botched birth verdict: $22.6M
BY KIMBALL PERRY | KPERRY@ENQUIRER.COM
A Blue Ash woman whose baby was stuck in her birth canal for 13½ hours won $22.6 million Monday in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
A Hamilton County jury – which heard five weeks of testimony and deliberated for 3½ days – found physician Lisa Yang and her Springdale group of doctors, Group Health Associates, negligent in the case.
Jurors also found the doctor and her group knew or should have known their actions would have resulted in brain injuries during the Sept. 4, 1997, birth of Cassie Grow.
“The evidence was pretty compelling that this baby was not going to fit” through Heather Grow’s birth canal, the mother’s attorney, Patrick P.J. Beirne, of Covington, said Monday.
Yang, Group Health Associates and the hospital had argued they weren’t negligent.
In the summer of 1997, Heather Grow was pregnant with her first child. Her doctors told her she had a narrow pelvic arch. That became a major medical issue two weeks before she gave birth when doctors realized her child – at about nine pounds – was going to be big.
“The child got stuck. It was clear that she was pushed through an (opening) she couldn’t fit. And this went on for hours and hours,” Beirne said. “It was like trying to fit a watermelon through (an opening) the size of an apple.”
In addition to being a big baby in a small canal, the baby’s injuries also were caused because medical workers – supervised by Yang – continued to give the mother drugs to make the uterus contract, hoping to expel the baby. The result was a uterus contracting on the baby’s stuck head, causing brain damage.
“She was having contractions every one to two minutes for hours. It violates every medical textbook. It puts the baby and mom (in) danger,” said Mark Mueller, another Grow attorney, from Austin, Texas.
The mother was in labor from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., Beirne said, before the baby was delivered by Caesarian section.
“The doctor had a responsibility to ensure she had a safe delivery,” Mueller said.
The baby suffered brain damage that will impact her for life because her head was squeezed for so long.
Cassie, now 11, is a spastic quadriplegic. That means she has limited use of her limbs.
She can walk short distances but needs a walker. She can see but because the part of her brain that processes vision was damaged, her brain can’t properly interpret what her eyes see. She has problems using her hands and she is mildly retarded, Mueller said.
“These are permanent injuries,” Mueller said.
Jurors also found that Good Samaritan Hospital workers were negligent in the delivery, but didn’t order the hospital to pay money damages.
The jury ruled that Yang and Group Health Associates have to pay the Grow family $22,646,023.
The vast majority of that was $7,959,747 for Cassie’s future medical bills and $7.5 million for her future loss of ability to perform usual activities. She also was awarded $3 million for pain and suffering.
Neither Yang nor Group Health Associates could be reached Monday.
Print | Close Window | Copyright 2008, Enquirer.com
In 1997 doctors should have known better. You don’t take chances with babies lives. My neice had a baby that this happened to also and he only lived for 2 days. Taking care of a quardiplegic and the emotionally stress of it deserves this kind of settlement. I only wonder if this doctor should still be practicing. This is why Malpratice rates are so high, but insurance should not be a fall back for careless people.