You may have always known that you wanted to have children someday. When the time came for the birth of your child, you probably felt elated about soon becoming a parent. Unfortunately, you may also have felt immense devastation if your child suffered a birth injury during delivery. Serious injuries could lead to permanent effects that have a substantial impact on your child’s life.
If you believe that mistakes made by hospital staff contributed to the injuries your child suffered, you may feel a myriad of emotions ranging from distress to anger. You may also wonder if you have options for seeking justice for the medical malpractice that harmed your baby. Luckily, legal avenues exist that could help you pursue compensation, and you may wish to understand against whom you could file a claim.
Hospital negligence
If you believe that the direct actions or lack of action on the part of doctors, nurses or other medical staff led to your child’s injury, you could file a medical malpractice claim against the specific individual or individuals responsible for the mistakes or negligence. The errors could range from a doctor failing to perform needed actions at the right time to using unnecessary actions or force during the delivery of a child.
For example, failing to deliver the infant in a timely manner could have resulted in lack of oxygen, or misusing forceps could have caused serious brain damage. In such instances, you may have cause to claim hospital negligence.
Vicarious liability
If medical staff contributed to your child’s injury, you may also have reason to name the hospital itself as a defendant in your case. The hospital could face vicarious liability, meaning that the facility holds responsibility for the actions of its staff. However, for vicarious liability to occur, the negligent employee or employees must have acted in the scope of their employment, meaning that the injuries must have occurred while the staff carried out job-related duties.
Filing a claim
If you wish to move forward with legal action, you may want to explore the option of filing a personal injury claim for medical malpractice. If successful, you could potentially gain compensation that could assist with medical bills, continued care and other services your child may need over the course of his or her life in order to contend with the injury suffered and its effects.
Because Massachusetts has specific proceedings for moving forward with a medical malpractice claim, you may wish to consult with an experienced attorney. This individual could provide you with useful information on the process and advise you regarding how to gather evidence for your case.
