What Makes Maryland Birth Injury Cases Unique?

Well, one of the key factors in a birth injury is that if the child survives the birth but has an injury, it’s one of the few instances in the law where the injured person can’t say what happened. They can’t say what they’re feeling. They can’t give you any input as to how they’re doing.

Whereas in a typical, automobile accident case, if someone hurts in their legs, they can tell you that my legs hurt.  There’s a before and after comparison. Here, it’s just how the baby is compared to what a normal baby might be or, what a baby with an injury might be.

And there’s also the aspect of whether something is congenital or not. So it goes into the history of the parents as well as the history of the child. In some instances, there is nothing that was done wrong by the doctor, but the baby is born with either Erb’s palsy or cerebral palsy.

And you know, it’s just a sad, unfortunate situation that in those cases, you know, there is no claim that the doctor did anything wrong. However, in the cases where the doctor does something wrong, those cases are incredibly hard fought because the damages are so high in those cases.

How Are Claims in a Birth Injury Case Determined?

It essentially takes the future impact of someone’s entire life from birth. So it’s approximately 75 years of future damages which could result in a high verdict or settlement.

Well, a medical malpractice case, it goes to arbitration board first before the lawsuits start. It also has requirement that a certificate of merit be obtained to proceed with the case, meaning that one doctor has to say what the other doctor did wrong before the case can proceed.

So that’s a little different. But these are just typical medical malpractice. They are very difficult and very complex. And only people who handle these cases should continue to handle these cases because the room for error is very small in these kinds of cases.