Damages in Birth Injury Cases

While a baby’s birth can be a joyous moment for parents, the moment may be clouded upon realization of the baby has a birth injury because these injuries can have such dire consequences for the family. These consequences are not only financial, but also emotional. It is distressing to realize that your child was injured by a preventable error. Filing a lawsuit to recover damages in birth injury cases can be a complicated, drawn-out process, and you should have tenacious legal representation. You should consult the results-oriented Syracuse birth injury lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys about whether you have grounds to sue and recover damages. Our firm seeks the best outcome in every case we take.

Assuming liability can be established, you should be able to recover all compensatory losses arising from a birth injury. The purpose of compensatory damages is to quantify all losses suffered by the baby and her parents and make up for them to the extent possible. Compensatory damages are meant to address losses arising out of the defendant or defendants’ conduct by spreading costs that arise to the party that caused the harm through a failure to abide by professional standards of care. These can include both economic and noneconomic damages.

There are certain cases where a defendant’s egregious misconduct makes it appropriate to seek punitive damages. Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are assessed as a form of punishment and deterrence for the defendant and others. They aren’t awarded in most cases, but the court may award them when there was recklessness or malicious intent to harm that resulted in birth injuries.

Economic damages involve all monetary, documented, or tangible losses you and your injured baby suffered due to his or her birth injuries. They can involve past, present, or future losses. Our attorneys typically establish these losses through documentation. However, in some cases, proving these damages requires expert testimony, as in the case of future economic losses, which may need to be the subject of testimony from an expert economist.

In most cases, Syracuse parents hope to recover both past and future losses associated with their child’s medical care including medical appointments, surgeries, medical devices, therapy, rehabilitation, medication, and other treatments.

When serious birth injuries have occurred, a baby may be permanently disabled. In that case, our lawyers would seek costs for long-term care including ongoing medical treatment and hospital bills, life support costs, alterations to home or car, and live-in nursing.

Many children with birth injuries must obtain special education. This can include an IEP, but it may require behavior, occupational, or speech therapies or private school costs. Our lawyers may be able to seek damages that include special education and therapy.

You may lose income because you need to take care of your disabled child. You may be able to recover your lost wages and other expenses, not only those you’ve already sustained but those you have a reasonable probability of losing in the future.

There are many intangible harms you and your Syracuse child may suffer as the result of a birth injury like cerebral palsy or shoulder dystocia. You and your child can also recover noneconomic damages from a defendant whose medical malpractice caused your child’s birth injuries. These are damages meant to, as best as possible, reimburse for emotional losses arising out of birth injuries and they can include pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life.

While economic damages may be fairly fixed regardless of the counsel you choose to represent you, a seasoned Syracuse attorney will be careful to fully explore what you and your child lost in terms of quality of life and emotional wellbeing due to birth injuries and your choice in counsel can make a big difference to the noneconomic damages award. The more catastrophic the losses, the greater the noneconomic damages award is likely to be.

Many families find damages awards to be crucial to providing sufficient care for their child who suffered a birth injury. Call the tenacious Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys if you believe your child was harmed by a health care provider during gestation or labor and delivery. We seek best results for families in Lowville, Rochester, Auburn, Watertown, Herkimer, Oswego, Wampsville, Canandaigua, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Oneida, Utica, Binghamton, Elmira, Buffalo, Albany, and all of Upstate New York. For a free consultation, complete our online form or call us at 833-200-2000.