Birth Injury Lawsuit Settlements | What Can You Recover in a Birth Injury Case?

Bringing a new baby into the world is one of the most meaningful moments you can experience. However, if your baby suffers an injury due to medical negligence or incompetence, that moment can be tainted. Birth injury lawsuit settlements cannot undo your baby’s injury, but they can provide you with the funds you need to get your child the best possible care. How much can you recover? Here is a closer look.

Why Is Compensation Essential After a Birth Injury?

Giving Your Child a Better Start in Life

Some birth injuries can heal on their own. However, very serious injuries — like those involving brain damage — will impact your child for the rest of their life. Some parents of children who suffer birth injuries hesitate to seek compensation because money cannot heal an injury. This is true, but children with birth injuries often need specialized medical care, additional in-home care, expensive medical equipment, and more. For many parents, these costs add up quickly, and they may cause considerable financial stress. If you are awarded compensation for your child’s birth injury, the funds may help you cover expenses.

Medical Care

Depending on the nature of your child’s birth injury, they may need emergency medical care immediately after birth. This kind of care can be extremely expensive. However, the most substantial medical costs usually come as a result of ongoing medical care.

For example, cerebral palsy is a somewhat common serious birth injury. If your child develops cerebral palsy, they will likely need ongoing medical care with a team of specialists.

The medical care itself can be costly, but there are related expenses you might not think of:

• Cost of transportation to medical appointments;
• Lost wages due to the child’s medical appointments;
• Cost of needed medical equipment (like braces or wheelchairs); and
• Cost of medications.

As a parent of a baby who has suffered a birth injury, you may be unable to foresee the medical expenses you might face in the future. During your consultation with us, we can look closely at your case and help you understand what medical costs your child may have in the future.

Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

Physical therapy usually cannot restore a person with a disability to completely normal functioning. However, physical and occupational therapy might be able to help your child navigate the world more independently.

Special Education

If your child’s intellectual abilities have been affected by the injury, your birth injury compensation may help cover the cost of special education. While some public schools do have special education programs, your child may do better in a specialized school.

Modification of Your Home or Car

This is not required for every kind of birth injury. However, if your child’s birth injury causes issues with mobility, you may need to modify your home and car to accommodate them. These are some of the modifications you may need to pay for:

• Wider doorways;
• Ramps;
• Grab bars in bathrooms;
• Stairlifts;
• Raised-height toilets; and
• Lowered countertops.

If your child is in a wheelchair, you may need to purchase a handicapped-accessible van that is equipped with a lift.

Ongoing In-Home Care

If your child’s birth injury resulted in substantial disability, you may need to hire an in-home health aide. If your child will be unable to care for themselves as an adult, your compensation may cover the cost of in-home care for the rest of the child’s life.

Lost Wages

For many parents, caring for a newborn who has suffered a birth injury causes them to miss a significant amount of work. That translates to lost income, which can make caring for the child’s special needs even more difficult. Compensation for your lost income can help ease the financial burden you are facing, allowing you to properly care for your child without having to stress about covering daily expenses.

The attorney you choose can make a major difference when it comes to the compensation you may recover. Call Cava Law Firm now at (413) 737-3430 or (413) 781-CAVA (2282) to book your free consultation and case review today.

What Kinds of Damages Can You Collect in Birth Injury Lawsuit Settlements?

Unless you are a lawyer, the complexity of personal injury claims can make it challenging to determine how much a case is worth. Part of that complexity comes from the fact that there are two main types of damages you may be able to collect in your settlement — economic and non-economic.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are the simplest to calculate. They make up for financial losses (like medical bills and the cost of special education) you have sustained as a result of your child’s injuries. To make calculating your economic damages easier, do your best to keep copies of every expense related to your child’s birth injury, including:

• Bills for medical care;
• Bills for physical therapy/rehabilitation;
• Receipts for medications;
• Receipts for medical equipment;
• Contracts and receipts for any modifications made to your home (like installing ramps); and
• Proof of income you lost as a result of caring for your child.

When in doubt, always keep receipts — our team will be able to tell you which expenses you may be able to seek compensation for and which you will not.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are losses you cannot easily assign a dollar value to. Pain and suffering is the most common. Non-economic damages may compensate your child for loss of quality of life, emotional trauma from disfigurement, and more. Our team has extensive experience with birth injury cases, so at your free consultation, we can give you an estimate of the non-economic damages you might be able to recover.

Factors That Influence the Value of Birth Injury Lawsuit Settlements

Many of our clients come into our office wanting to know the value of their birth injury case. Unfortunately, calculating the potential value of your settlement is often more complicated than it seems. When you schedule your consultation, our team can assess your case and determine how much compensation you may be able to recover. These are some of the key factors that influence the total value of a birth injury case:

The Seriousness of the Birth Injury

The seriousness of an injury can be somewhat subjective. However, most people would agree that a broken arm that heals completely is a less severe birth injury than permanent brain damage. Severe injuries often come with higher medical costs and have a more significant impact on a child’s quality of life, and both of these factors typically increase the value of a settlement.

Whether the Injury Has Permanent Effects

A lifelong medical issue will cost more over time than a temporary one. As a result, compensation for a permanent birth injury will likely be much greater than compensation for an injury that eventually resolves.

How Much the Injury Impacts the Child’s Quality of Life

Birth injury lawsuit settlements are meant to help cover the financial cost of birth injuries — but they are also meant to compensate the child for the pain and suffering they have experienced (and will experience in the future) as a result of the injury. Injuries that cause mental disabilities, physical disabilities, and ongoing physical pain will usually result in higher birth injury lawsuit settlements than those that do not.

The Injury’s Financial Impact on the Family

Economic damages (quantifiable losses like medical care and lost wages) are not the only losses that matter when it comes to calculating a birth injury settlement, but they do play a major role. For instance, if your family has already spent a significant amount of money on your child’s care, that amount will be taken into consideration when calculating a settlement.

The Degree of Negligence of the Medical Provider

Doctors almost never cause birth injuries on purpose. However, some medical practitioners are more negligent than others. For example, if your doctor failed to notice obvious signs that your baby was in distress, they might be considered more negligent than someone who missed less obvious symptoms.

How Many People Were Potentially Negligent

When you file a birth injury lawsuit (or any other kind of personal injury lawsuit), you do not have to name only one defendant. In many cases, injuries involve negligence on the part of several different parties. When it comes to birth injuries and other kinds of medical malpractice, lawsuits will often name the individual doctor who was negligent, as well as the hospital or medical practice as a whole.

Does Massachusetts Cap How Much You Can Recover in Birth Injury Lawsuits?

Like many states, Massachusetts has laws that restrict the amount of damages a plaintiff can collect in a personal injury lawsuit. In medical malpractice cases (including birth injury cases), economic damages are not capped. However, state law imposes a cap of $500,000 on non-economic damages (like pain and suffering). There is an exception to this cap — if the court determines that one or more bodily functions have been significantly impaired by the injury, the cap does not apply.

Understanding the Birth Injury Lawsuit Process

The factors above aren’t the only things that may influence total settlement value. How you go about the lawsuit process — as well as the choices you and your attorney make — can also impact the total value of your case. Here is a look at the process.

Choosing an Attorney

Some people make the mistake of thinking it does not matter who they choose as their attorney. However, choosing an experienced lawyer can sometimes mean the difference between winning your case and walking away with nothing. A skilled attorney will take the time to build a strong case, and they will have the necessary negotiation and litigation experience to represent you well — whether your case settles out of court or is decided in the courtroom.

Before choosing your lawyer, you should look into the background of each firm you are considering. Consultations are also important. Your birth injury attorney should be someone you feel comfortable talking to about your case, and consultations let you see whether you and a given lawyer might be a good fit.

Building Your Case

When it comes to negotiating birth injury lawsuit settlements, the other party’s insurance company is not just going to take your word for it. If your attorney can build a strong case that proves your child’s birth injury is as life-altering as you say, you will be more likely to receive a larger settlement. Your attorney might use the following when building your case:

• Hospital charts or records detailing what led up to the injury;
• Medical bills;
• Receipts for medical equipment;
• Receipts for any modifications made to your home;
• Proof of lost wages;
• Statements from doctors explaining the impact of your child’s injuries;
• A calculation of the estimated future cost of caring for your child; and
• A daily log explaining how your child’s injuries impact their life.

Keeping a daily log of the impact of your child’s injuries can be more important than you realize. Logging your child’s daily activities can help insurance companies or juries get a complete picture of your child’s level of impairment.

Negotiating a Settlement

As you have seen, settlements in birth injury lawsuits can vary greatly. Some of that value is determined by the nature of your child’s injuries, but some of it comes down to your attorney’s ability to negotiate. Your birth injury lawyer will assemble all the evidence in your case into a convincing argument. If the other party’s insurance company thinks you have a good chance of winning if your case goes to trial, they are more likely to agree to a larger settlement. On the other hand, if they think your case is not convincing, they might agree to only a small settlement — or refuse to settle at all.

Going to Trial

Most of these cases result in settlements. Hospitals and medical professionals almost always want to avoid the publicity of a personal injury trial, and their insurance companies want to avoid paying for their own expensive trial attorneys. However, if we cannot agree on a settlement amount with the other side, we can take your case to trial. When it comes to compensation, going to trial is a gamble. Often, if you win your case, a judge will award you more than you would have recovered by settling. However, if you do not win at trial, you walk away with nothing.

If your case goes to trial, your choice of attorney becomes incredibly important. At Cava Law Firm, we have extensive experience taking clients’ birth injury cases all the way to the courtroom. We put our experience as litigators to work for you to increase your chances of getting the settlement you and your child deserve.

Quality Legal Representation When You Need It Most

Winning Is NO Accident!

At Cava Law Firm, we understand that you are facing one of the most challenging times of your life. That is why we take a personalized approach to every case. Our attorneys will fiercely advocate for you in court while offering the support and understanding you need.

If your baby has suffered a birth injury, that injury may have lifelong consequences. We may be able to help you recover the compensation you need to support your child. Call us today at (413) 737-3430 or (413) 781-CAVA (2282) to schedule a free consultation.

Attorney Jennifer L. Cava-Foreman

Attorney Jennifer L. Cava-Foreman would like to take the guesswork out of choosing a lawyer by letting the facts and her winning verdicts speak for themselves. Attorney Cava-Foreman is known in the local courts and has firsthand experience with many types of cases ranging from personal injury to criminal defense. Attorney Cava-Foreman understands that every case and every client is different. Whether a client is injured or mixed up in a criminal matter, she will provide the legal advice needed and stand up for her client in court. [ Attorney Bio ]