Birth Injury Lawyer Orange County

Sean: We've handled cases involving young children that get injured either at birth or through some other process, and you know the families face incredible challenges when they're dealing with those kinds of injuries. They're going to be life-long and it can change a family's life, so it's very rewarding to us to be able to take on a hospital, or a doctor and the insurance companies and be able to win that case for them. And to be able to provide them with enough compensation, so that they can take care of that child for a long period of time, whether it's around-the-clock nurses, vans that they have to buy, all sorts of accommodations to the home. Those are the kinds of things that are really, really rewarding. We hire experts called life-care planners, so if it's a very serious injury, a very significant injury then that's the kind of expert who can project out into the future what it's going to cost to take care of these particular problems. Whether it's medications, whether it's in-home care, whether it's around-the-clock care, like I said vans, sometimes people have to have particular medical devices, wheelchairs whatever it is, and they project all that out, and they figure out the cost of that, and we make sure we include that in our settlement. Heather: When I receive call from a mom or dad regarding a birth injury case, I'm always sensitive to the fact that that mom or dad is calling from home maybe with a disabled child now in another room, perhaps in a crib nearby or perhaps in a neo-natal intensive care unit. And they were happily anticipating the birth of their child and now they have an injured baby. They're still recovering from the initial shock of having an injured baby when they thought they would have a healthy one, but they're also saddened and frustrated, at the same time with what they perceive as medical malpractice. But many times we get calls from parents who tell us that during the birth process, perhaps during the labor and delivery of the child, a lot went wrong. Perhaps the baby wasn't progressing during the labor and delivery, and there was a delay in performing the cesarean section, and consequently the baby suffered oxygen deprivation, injury to the baby's brain. So not only do we take down all the information from the parent, we meet with the parents. We gather the medical records of the baby and the mom, because it's a labor and delivery situation. We have our medical experts look at those records, to see if there is a good solid basis for a medical negligence case. If we accept a brain injury baby case then it's full steam ahead, and we retain, usually anywhere from 10 to 15 experts, to evaluate not only the negligence and causation aspects of the case, but also the damages part of the case. So again, in these cases we have to prove that not only was there negligence that something was done below the standard of care by the physicians and/or the hospital nurses, but also that there's a correlation between the malpractice and the injury. Then after we prove all of that, we have to prove the damages. And the damages are not only what is taking place today or next month, but the damages are lifelong in terms of what needs will this baby have into teen years, into adult years for the rest of their life. And oftentimes, sadly with a brain injury that person when they enter adulthood will need attendant care. They will need somebody with them for 24 hours a day for instance. They'll need certain services. They'll need therapies. And a parent looking at their baby in the crib is not going to be thinking ahead 10, 20, 30 years. That's our job. We have to take all of that into consideration, evaluate that through our experts, and then gather all of that information to present to a jury, to fully compensate that little baby.