It grinds on inexorably, for all that the medical establishment may cast aspersions on it (see also Feb. 27). In June a San Jose jury voted $38 million to a family in a case in which an earlier Caesarean section would allegedly have prevented a child’s cerebral palsy; the medical defendants strenuously denied any such causal link (Barbara Feder Ostrov, “Baby, family win $38 million verdict”, San Jose Mercury News, Jun. 18). The Palm Beach Post traces the history of a $10 million verdict which “sank one of Florida’s largest physician-run malpractice insurers … While the award pays for Kenan’s care, it also pays for legal fees that leave [mother Priscilla] Davis wondering at times whether she should have taken her chances with the state Medicaid plan.” Causation, you ask? “It remains unclear whether any doctor could have prevented Kenan’s cerebral palsy.” It was a Willie Gary case (Sanjay Bhatt, “Boy’s case illustrates malpractice crisis”, Palm Beach Post, Jun. 15). And a federal judge in East St. Louis, Ill. has awarded $19 million in a lawsuit which ascribed a child’s cerebral palsy to a doctor’s improper use of a vacuum extractor during labor. No word from the newspaper report on whether the defendants disputed this causal theory, but the choice of defendants was an interesting one: the federal Treasury. “The doctor, Charles L. Davis, was considered a federal employee because his employer, the Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation, receives funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The government was named as a defendant, but he was not.” (William Lamb, “Botched birth nets verdict of $19 million”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jul. 31).

Filed under: Illinois, medical, Willie Gary