LAWSUIT: Pennsylvania Jury Awards $5.6M to Parents of Brain Damaged Child After Botched Birth and Invasion of Privacy
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2020 by the parents of the now 6-year-old girl - Alexandra Wolfson and Jason Hoffman - in the Court of Common Pleas Philadelphia County against midwife Anne Pitts Londergan, CNM, and Albert Einstein Medical Center, among others. The case number is 200700471.
The jury issued its verdict on June 27, finding Londergan, Einstein and others liable for negligence, invasion of privacy and breach of confidentiality.
"Although nothing can ever undo the negligence this child suffered, this was a landmark ruling by the jury ensuring that patient privacy is always protected," said plaintiffs' attorney Tom Bosworth.
"We're so grateful the jury acknowledged all that our daughter has gone through since the day she was born. Our daughter suffers from permanent birth injuries due to negligence, and, to make matters worse, her privacy was violated by someone we should have been able to trust," added mother Alexandra Wolfson.
According to the complaint, after the botched birth, Londergan, the midwife who delivered the child, traumatized the parents even further by violating their privacy after she posted a picture of the newborn's misshapen head on her personal Instagram page with the headline, "Jellybean head, courtesy of malpresentation (brow and OP)," along with additional personal information about the birth that elicited numerous inappropriate comments such as "Poor kid! Window? and "Mack truck pelvis?" and "Oh ouch.. poor baby."
Londergan's unauthorized reference to "malpresentation (brow and OP)" refers to two separate abnormalities that can occur during birth with the presentation - i.e. position - of the fetus during the birth process.
None of the healthcare providers detected either the brow or OP positioning abnormalities during the labor and delivery, according to the lawsuit. The family's medical experts found that this resulted in the baby's head and skull being repeatedly crushed and compressed with every contraction.
The child's parents never consented or agreed to the midwife, Londergan, sharing private information about their child.
The first trial ended in a mistrial in early September due to legal technicalities.
** The lawsuit and visuals for media use can be found HERE **
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Tom Bosworth of Bosworth Law focuses on representing catastrophic injury victims, representing those harmed by dangerous consumer products, dangerous medical devices, medical malpractice, and more. In 2022 he became the youngest attorney in Pennsylvania history to obtain a verdict greater than $10 million for a living patient in a medical malpractice case.
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SOURCE: Bosworth Law
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