<court>Cook County (Ill) Circuit Court</court>
During pregnancy, a woman experienced a urinary tract infection with group B streptococcus. Twenty-four hours after delivery, her infant son developed meningitis and group B streptococcus sepsis. The plaintiff, who was 12 at the time of the trial, suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities.
In suing, the plaintiff argued that given his mother’s infection during pregnancy, she should have received prophylactic antibiotics during labor or he should have been given antibiotics following birth.
The doctor argued that in 1990, when the incident occurred, there were no standards for administering intrapartum antibiotics under these circumstances.
- The jury returned defense verdicts for the obstetrician and pediatrician; the plaintiff settled with the hospital and nurse for $2.75 million.
The cases presented here were compiled by Lewis L. Laska, editor of Medical Malpractice Verdicts, Settlements & Experts. While there are instances when the available information is incomplete, these cases represent the types of clinical situations that typically result in litigation.