The Best Birth Injury Lawyers in North Carolina

Best Birth Injury Lawyers in North Carolina

What Makes a Lawyer the Best?

The birth of a baby should be a time of joy and excitement. But for families managing the effects of a birth injury, a happy occasion can become a period of fear, anxiety, and unanswered questions – how did this happen? Could it have been prevented? What are the next steps? The best way to get answers to these questions and provide financial security for your child is to hire the best birth injury lawyer available. To do that, you need to know what qualities and characteristics justify including a lawyer as one of the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina.

To be included among the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina, an attorney should undeniably have a proven track record of successfully litigating birth injury lawsuits. For the parents of a child suffering a severe and permanent birth injury, however, there are other equally important attorney qualities to look for. With that in mind, the best North Carolina birth injury attorneys stand out among the crowd because of their client testimonials and professional accolades. Potential plaintiffs should also pay attention to lawyers who choose to specialize in the highly complex field of birth injury litigation. This singular focus shows a solid commitment to holding health care professionals accountable when their negligence leads to preventable suffering for children and families.

It Starts with Results

Although results alone do not make a lawyer one of the best, successful settlements and verdicts are an essential factor in choosing the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina. Birth injury cases are a sub-specialty of medical malpractice law and considered among the most factually and legally complex to litigate. With that in mind, looking at past successes is a great place to start when searching for the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina.

Lawyers Who Get Results

To find the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina, look to lawyers with a history of successful verdicts and settlements, positive client and professional reviews, and the commitment needed to aggressively advocate for injured children and their families. The following lawyers combine all those critical traits:

John Edwards of Edwards Kirby, Attorneys at Law in Raleigh, North Carolina, won a $23.3 million record-setting verdict for a child who suffered brain injuries at birth, including cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia, as well as a $10 million verdict for birth injuries sustained because of a delayed C-section. Before entering private practice, Attorney Edwards was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998 and ran as the vice-presidential candidate alongside presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. He was named Lawyer of the Year by Lawyers Weekly U.S.A. Best Lawyers in America 2021, Lawyer of the Year for Medical Malpractice (Raleigh metro area) and designated among Super Lawyers for 2018-2021. He also gets a Tier 1 ranking and excellent reviews by U.S. News & World Report.

 

John W. Jensen of Jensen Law Group in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, recovered $13.5 million for the family of a child who was paralyzed at birth because the physicians and nurses caring for the baby broke her neck during delivery. Attorney Jensen also recovered $3.5 million for permanent brain damage caused by failure to timely deliver despite fetal distress and $1.5 million for a child who suffered brain damage and cerebral palsy for failure to perform a C-section after signs of fetal distress. He is actively involved in the North Carolina Advocates for Justice, having served as the Professional Negligence Section’s Chair and Technology Chair for the Professional Negligence Section. His firm has several five-star reviews on Google from satisfied clients.

 

Kent Brownof Brown|Moore & Associates, P.L.L.C. in Charlotte, North Carolina, successfully recovered $4 million for a child who suffered a birth injury resulting in cerebral palsy and $2.5 million for another baby who suffered an avoidable birth injury. Attorney Brown has an A.V. Preeminent Lawyer Rating from Martindale Hubbell, an honor reserved for the top five percent of all U.S. lawyers. U.S. News and World Report recognized Brown Moore & Associates as one of The Best Law firms in America. Both the American Trial Lawyers Association and the National Trial Lawyers Association have listed Attorney Brown as among the Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America, and he was selected to chair the medical malpractice division of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice. His multiple five-star Google reviews speak to his compassion and commitment as well.

 

John Alan Jones of Martin & Jones, with three offices throughout North Carolina, achieved a $7.5 million settlement on the eve of trial for a baby who suffered brain damage because of the failure to recognize fetal distress, as well as a $9 million settlement for a baby who developed meningitis in a hospital after healthcare professionals ignored the warning signs of an infection at birth, leading to permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy. Attorney Jones has an A.V. Preeminent rating with Martindale-Hubbell and has been listed among the “Best Lawyers in America” from 2008 to the present as a North Carolina Super Lawyer from 2007 to the present. In addition, his firm’s client reviews on Google attest to the team’s dedication in holding negligent defendants accountable for birth injuries.

Examples of North Carolina Birth Injury Lawsuits

Birth injury lawsuits are highly complex because plaintiffs must prove negligence on the part of one or more health care providers while also showing how that negligence caused or contributed to their injuries. Negligence can be demonstrated by something a healthcare provider did or failed to do. Making matters more convoluted is the fact that more than one health care provider’s negligence may have contributed to the injuries suffered by a victim.

To get a better idea of how complicated a North Carolina birth injury case can be, consider the $7.5 million settlement attorney John Alan Jones recovered for a client. In that case, a healthy young mother went into labor at term, but two hours after arriving at the hospital, the fetal monitor began to show signs of fetal distress. The attending nurse did not notify the doctor for more than two hours, after which the mother’s membranes ruptured. Despite the presence of thick meconium, indicating a baby in distress, no one called a pediatrician to be present when the baby was born. The baby girl was blue and unresponsive when born. The respiratory therapist present at the time of birth did not even begin giving the baby oxygen for six minutes. That same respiratory therapist finally tried to place a breathing tube to resuscitate the baby; however, she misplaced the tube, instead inserting it in the baby’s esophagus, providing no oxygen to the baby. The breathing tube remained in the wrong place until the pediatrician arrived, resulting in a 22-minute lapse from the time of birth until the first detectable heart rate. The child developed quadriplegic cerebral palsy because of the lack of oxygen at birth.

Other acts of negligence on the part of a health care provider that commonly give rise to a North Carolina birth injury lawsuit include:

Lawyers for North Carolina Cerebral Palsy Cases

Medical malpractice cases are among the most challenging of all personal injury cases to litigate. Cerebral palsy birth injury cases, in turn, are among the most complex medical malpractice cases because of the challenges involved in proving when the lack of oxygen that causes cerebral palsy occurs. Oxygen deprivation can occur while a baby is in the womb, or it can occur during delivery. For a health care provider to be held liable for negligence, something that happens during delivery must be responsible for the lack of oxygen to the baby. These attorneys have proven that they are among the best birth injury lawyers in North Carolina for cerebral palsy cases:

Bailey Melvin of Melvin Law Firm in Greenville, North Carolina, has collectively recovered more than $20 million for children and their families who live with cerebral palsy caused by the negligence of health care professionals. Attorney Melvin was named to the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Trial Lawyers and selected to Super Lawyers for 2020 and 2021.

Common Birth Injury Defendants in North Carolina

In a birth injury lawsuit, fault (negligence in legal terms) may not lie with a single defendant. On the contrary, several health care providers frequently share in the negligence that caused or contributed to the birth injury. Doctors, nurses, therapists, surgeons, and anesthesiologists are common defendants in a birth injury lawsuit. The hospital where the birth took place is also typically named as a defendant. In a North Carolina birth injury lawsuit, common hospital defendants include:

About North Carolina Birth Injury Cases and Birth Injury Law

Almost all lawsuits have an applicable statute of limitations determining how long an injured party has to initiate legal action. In North Carolina, the statute of limitations for parental medical malpractice claims, including a birth injury, is three years from the date of birth or two years from the date of death if the child dies as a result. While these timelines have limited exceptions, most do not apply to a birth injury lawsuit.

Unlike most states, North Carolina uses the doctrine of contributory negligence in personal injury lawsuits. What that means for an injured victim is that if the defendant(s) can prove your conduct contributed at all to your injuries, the defendant avoids all legal liability. By contrast, comparative negligence, used by most states, apportions the fault when more than one party (including the victim) contributed to the injuries suffered by the plaintiff.

In medical malpractice lawsuits, North Carolina also imposes a cap (maximum) on certain types of damages (compensation). Non-economic damages are capped at $500,000. Non-economic damages compensate a victim for discomfort, pain, anxiety, stress, loss of enjoyment of life, scarring, and other subjective injuries. The cap applies against all defendants and to the amount awarded to all plaintiffs. In other words, the combined total paid by all defendants for non-economic damages cannot exceed $500,000, and the amount awarded to all plaintiffs cannot exceed $500,000. The damage cap does not apply, however, if a jury finds that both of the following are true:

  1. The plaintiff suffered the loss of use of part of their body, permanent injury, disfigurement, or death.
  2. The defendant’s actions (or their failures to act) were grossly negligent, reckless, fraudulent, committed with malice, or intentional.

North Carolina also caps the amount of punitive damages awarded in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Where other damages are intended to compensate a victim, punitive damages are designed to punish a defendant and only awarded for conduct that was grossly negligent, reckless, fraudulent, committed with malice, or intentional. Punitive damages in a North Carolina medical malpractice case are capped at three times the amount of compensatory damages or $250,000, whichever is greater.

A Successful Birth Injury Case Starts With Choosing the Best Representation

Birth-related injury claims are often complex and emotionally taxing for the victims and their family members. That’s why choosing the best North Carolina birth injury attorney – one with a history of high-dollar results and recognition from both their professional peers and past and former clients- is a crucial part of a lawsuit’s success.