Giving birth is supposed to be a joyous event, but a birth injury can turn it into a years-long nightmare. A birth injury can destroy a family’s financial situation and add an incredible amount of stress to their lives. Let us help you take some of the burden off your shoulders.
Medical malpractice has caused your child’s birth injury. We have birth injury attorneys in Birmingham who can tell you if this was the case and who can help you get compensation for your child’s birth injury. Here’s how the Birth Injury Lawyers Group can help you.
For a free legal consultation, call 1-800-222-9529
Filing a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
There are an enormous number of things that can go wrong in medicine. It’s not a perfect science. This makes it hard to tell if a doctor did everything they could and still hurt a baby, or if they did something negligent and caused the injury.
Birth injury attorneys help families find out if their doctors, nurses, or other caretaker acted outside of the standards of care for the medical profession. Medical boards create these standards out of the latest science and case experiences across the profession.
If your doctor violated these standards, then you may have a valid medical malpractice claim for your child’s birth injury. However, to prove it and to give you the best outcome for your settlement, you need the help of a birth injury attorney.
Birmingham Birth Injury Lawyer Near Me 1-800-222-9529
Insurers Won’t Help You
Obstetrics, the specialty that handles births, has the highest number of malpractice claims across all medical disciplines. Insurers know that if you have a birth injury claim, then they may have to pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
They won’t want to do that. Instead, you might get offers that are way too low, or face delaying tactics that make it harder for you to settle. The insurers know you’re at a disadvantage, plus you’re under stress with caring for your child.
Once you have a birth injury attorney on your side, you won’t have to worry about the insurers. We serve as a shield and an intermediary for any contact between you and the insurer, and we know the rules that the insurance companies must follow.
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Proving Your Damages
Damages are the negative consequences you and your child face because of someone else’s negligence. Proving damages is another task of your birth injury lawyer. You can get compensation for many things you might not expect. Common birth injury damages include:
- Medical costs related to your child’s care, and possibly the mother’s
- Lost income because of time off taking care of your child
- Pain and suffering, along with other non-economic damages
- Wrongful death damages if your child dies because of their birth injury
- Future costs for taking care of your child’s long-term disability
The damages you can receive and how much they are will depend on the evidence in the case and the skill of your birth injury lawyer’s negotiation. Every case is unique, but six figures for a settlement is not uncommon.
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Proving Negligence
Before we can claim damages though, we have to prove negligence harmed your child. To do that, we must prove three things:
- There was a medical relationship between you and the defendant
- The defendant violated the standards of care to create a negligent situation
- That violation caused your child’s injury, whether directly or indirectly
Your lawyer will gather evidence necessary to prove these things. They’ll examine your medical records to get an idea of what happened. They’ll talk with medical experts who can point out any problems in procedures. Your lawyer may also depose witnesses at the time of the accident to get their take.
While you’re helping your child recover, we’ll be in the background working hard on your case. Our lawyers group has decades of experience helping families get compensation for birth injuries that were not their fault. We know what to do to force the insurers to accept your claim, or convince a jury that you need justice.
Common Kinds of Birth Injuries
Even a minor birth injury can be the basis of a claim, but most people approach birth injury attorneys because their child has a significant disability or because the injury goes far beyond expectations. Common birth injuries we see include:
- Cerebral palsy
- Broken bones, especially collarbones
- Erb’s palsy
- Brain bleeding
- Cephalohematoma
- External trauma
- Birth asphyxia
- Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy
- Other forms of brain damage
These all take a long time and specialized care to treat, and a complete cure may not be possible. Cerebral palsy care alone can cost over a million dollars to manage until your child becomes an adult.
Yet even if your injury is small, you should get compensation if negligence caused the injury. Malpractice cases keep medical professionals honest. Your claim could help keep other families from poor medical care.
Are There Caps on Medical Malpractice Claims in Alabama?
Some states place a limit on how much you can get from a medical malpractice claim even if a jury says you’re owed more. Alabama does not have caps like these after the state Supreme Court struck it down. You can recover all the financial losses you’ve suffered in your malpractice claim.
Is There a Deadline to Sue?
Yes, there is. Alabama sets a two-year statute of limitations. You have two years to get your case started from the date that the injury happened before the court will dismiss your case. You must get your case started as soon as possible after you discover the injury to help your child get justice.
If the injury was invisible and could have not been reasonably discovered until later, you have six months from the date of the discovery to get your case started. However, there is a maximum of four years to start a claim from when the medical error happened. This is called the statute of repose.
As the parent, you may sue on behalf of your child if someone else injured them. Make sure you don’t miss these deadlines by getting your case started as soon as possible after you discover your child’s birth injury.
Contact a Birmingham Birth Injury Attorney Today
If you live in Birmingham and your child was injured before, during, or soon after birth, don’t accept the consequences. Fight back with the help of the Birth Injury Lawyers Group. We have birth injury attorneys in Birmingham ready to listen to your story.
Find out if you can get compensation for what happened to your child. Call us at the number on your screen to schedule a free consultation. You can also do this by email through our website. All consultations are free and you owe us nothing unless you win your case.
Call or text 1-800-222-9529
or complete a Free Case Evaluation form