Cerebral palsy claims are among the highest-stakes cases in Ontario medical malpractice litigation. They typically arise from labour and delivery, where allegations of failures of fetal monitoring, delayed caesarean section, mismanagement of shoulder dystocia, or improper use of forceps or vacuum are connected to hypoxic-ischemic injury at or near birth. The clinical pathway from intrapartum hypoxia to cerebral palsy is medically complex and contested, and not all cases of cerebral palsy are caused by negligent obstetric care.
Causation is the central battleground in cerebral palsy litigation. The medical literature recognizes multiple non-negligent causes of cerebral palsy, including prenatal factors, prematurity, infection, genetic abnormalities, and antenatal stroke. Defence counsel routinely advance the position that the plaintiff’s cerebral palsy is not attributable to intrapartum events, supported by neuroradiology evidence on the timing and pattern of brain injury and by expert obstetric opinion on the adequacy of intrapartum care. Plaintiff counsel must address each of these alternative explanations through their own expert evidence.
Damages in cerebral palsy cases are typically substantial, given the lifelong care needs, loss of earning capacity, and need for adaptive housing, equipment, and therapy. Court approval is required for any settlement on behalf of the affected child as a minor.
Posts tagged Cerebral Palsy analyze Ontario decisions involving cerebral palsy claims, with particular attention to the causation analysis and the assessment of future-care damages.
An Alberta court found that an urgent C-section taking 101 minutes fell below the standard of care, that two physicians’ combined 50 minutes of unnecessary delay was not a defensible judgment call, and that the delay caused a child’s cerebral palsy. A look at the timeliness standard, the causation reasoning, and why this Alberta decision is persuasive, not binding, in Ontario.
Dr. Bailey admitted that her management of labour was negligent and that it caused a hypoxic brain injury at birth. The plaintiffs still lost, because they could not prove that the brain injury caused the child’s lasting impairments. JB v Bailey is an Alberta decision, persuasive only in Ontario, but it is a clear reminder that admitted negligence and admitted injury are not the same as proven causation.
Ontario Court of Appeal affirms reduction of contingency fee from $4.1 million to $3.25 million in $14 million birth injury settlement involving vulnerable client.
A defence motion for a neuropsychological assessment was refused eight years after the statement of defence in a complex pediatric malpractice case.
A family physician identified a high-risk twin pregnancy and started a referral letter that was never sent. The Alberta Court of King’s Bench found liability.
A jury verdict of $11.5 million for cerebral palsy, upheld at the Court of Appeal, following a community obstetrician’s failure to recognize and refer twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
St. Catharines Standard coverage of the Court of Appeal’s July 2020 affirmance of the Woods v Jackiewicz jury verdict. Bill Sawchuk interviews Paul Cahill.
St. Catharines Standard coverage of the April 2019 jury verdict in Woods v Jackiewicz, an $11.5 million obstetric negligence verdict for cerebral palsy.
Paul Cahill won an $11.5 million jury verdict against an obstetrician whose failure to refer to a perinatologist caused a catastrophic cerebral palsy birth injury.
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