Deputies Sent to Doctor’s Home
20th October 2011
Read it.
Attorney Martin White says he and Haley Cobb’s family have patiently waited for 11 months for the $9.7 million they’re owed from winning a medical malpractice case the largest jury award in Trumbull County’s history.
That’s a bunch.
The original $13.9 million the jury awarded the Cobbs was reduced to $9.7 million by virtue of a set off for $2.4 million that plaintiffs received for settling with co-defendants.
In the original case, the Cobb family alleged that Dr. Tara Shipman’s decision not to perform a Caesarean section led to Haley not receiving sufficient oxygen while in the womb, causing brain injury and ultimately her cerebral palsy. The girl is now 11 years old.
The family settled for $6.5 million before the trial with another doctor, who has since died, and Trumbull Memorial Hospital.
And yet if they’d decided to abort the child, nobody would owe anything. Perhaps the doctor could sue on those grounds.
The sum of $13.9 million would yield over $600,000 a year, even in today’s economy. I don’t know of any 11-year-old kid who could earn that much in a year, nor do I believe that it would cost that much for full-time care. This would appear to be an excellent argument for tort reform.