When a doctor, nurse, or another medical professional makes a preventable mistake that injures you or your child, you have the right to hold them accountable for their negligence.
With the help of an Illinois birth injury lawyer at Ben Crump Law, PLLC, you may be able to recover awards for all your related losses.
Awards You Can Get in a Birth Injury Case
A birth injury to you or your child can turn an expected happy occasion into a lifetime of unanticipated expenses. To help make amends, you may be able to seek compensation. These awards can include the following:
- Past and future medical, therapy, and rehabilitation bills
- Modifications to homes and vehicles to accommodate impairments
- Specialized medical assistive devices and educational aids
- Lost wages and future income of parents who must stay home to care for a disabled or injured child
- Physical and emotional pain and suffering
Although financial awards cannot compensate for what your child and your family, they can help ease financial concerns as you or your child gets medical treatment. It also can send a message to negligent professionals that hopefully will prevent similar incidents in the future.
How Our Law Firm Serving Illinois Can Help You and Your Family
Birth injuries are a type of medical malpractice case. These cases are not always straightforward and often involve complex situations and judgment calls. As a result, a thorough investigation of the situation is necessary to determine whether you have a valid legal claim.
As your legal advocates, we go to great lengths to build a strong case on your behalf. We can take the following actions to work toward an award in your case:
- Review your medical records
- Interview witnesses
- Consult medical experts
By taking these actions, we can determine the true cause of the birth injury to your child. If we find that medical negligence occurred, we can then pursue all available means of legal recourse to pursue compensation.
Paying for Our Legal Services
All cases begin with a free legal consultation with our team to review the details of your case. You can tell us your story and we can get the information that we need to evaluate your case.
If we decide to work together, you pay us nothing up front. We receive payment only when you receive a settlement or award in your case. This fee arrangement allows you to proceed with your case without having to worry about paying out of pocket for our services.
Building and Proving a Birth Injury Case Under Illinois Law
Getting a financial recovery in a birth injury case requires proof of four separate legal elements:
Duty of Care Through a Doctor-Patient Relationship
You must show that the doctor or other medical professional owed you a duty of care that a reasonable professional in the same discipline would exercise in the same situation. This duty includes attending to the needs of the child and responding appropriately and reasonably to any problems.
Breach of the Duty of Care
A doctor may breach the legal duty of care by failing to acknowledge or respond appropriately to signs of distress or other problems. Taking inappropriate actions under the circumstances also may be evidence of a breach of the duty of care.
Causation Between the Breach and Injuries to You or Your Child
You must show a direct link between the breach in the duty of care and the injuries to your child. In other words, injuries to you or your child would not have occurred if the breach had not occurred.
The Birth Injury Led to Financial and Non-Financial Losses
You must provide evidence that you suffered losses as a result of the injuries, such as medical bills, pain and suffering, and/or permanent disability.
Common Causes of Birth Injury Cases
Various actions may rise to the level of medical negligence that causes birth injuries. However, some situations lead to birth injuries more commonly than others. Some typical causes of birth injuries may include doctors or other medical professionals who:
- Inappropriate delays in necessary Caesarean deliveries
- Improperly use forceps or vacuums to extract the child
- Fail to properly monitor the child prior to, during, or just after childbirth
- Fail to promptly respond to signs of distress
- Ignore or fail to treat problems that occur during pregnancy
- Fail to appropriately refer women with high-risk pregnancies or newborns to specialists as needed
In some cases, delays in necessary treatment or inappropriate actions can lead to significant injuries to newly born children. They may suffer from developmental delays and other impairments that could be permanent.
A lawyer from our Illinois office can help you accurately measure the impact of the birth injuries and seek compensation for them.
Timelines in a Birth Injury Case
Deadlines exist for all types of lawsuits. These deadlines vary according to state law and the types of lawsuits that you want to file. Under 735 ILCS § 5/13-212(a), anyone who is under the age of 18 at the time that they fall victim to medical malpractice generally has eight years to file their cases in court.
As a result, in the case of a birth injury, you likely have until the eighth birthday of your child to file a medical malpractice or birth injury lawsuit in court. Failing to follow this timeline can result in being unable to hold doctors and other medical professionals accountable for their negligence. You could have a child with permanent injuries and no way to get compensation from those who are responsible for the injuries.
You Can Rely on Us to Handle Your Birth Injury Case
When you hire an Illinois birth injury lawyer at Ben Crump Law, PLLC, you take the first step toward getting compensation for the injuries you or your child suffered.
Connect with our offices at (844) 998-2554 for a free case review.
