If you’re interested in pursuing legal action against a doctor, a healthcare facility or a nurse because your child was born with cerebral palsy, you need to understand a few things.
The first thing you need to understand is that there are time limits on how long you have to do this. If you contact a cerebral palsy attorney, and let them know what you are thinking, they can give you an idea of how long you have to wait before you can reach your final decision. Beyond that, there are a couple things you’ll need to consider.
Finances
Legal representation sounds expensive, but understand that these types of cases are handled “on contingency.” Under the provisions of such an agreement, the attorney will not ask you for a penny unless (and until) they actually manage to win the case or settle out of court. All legal fees are taken out of the settlement or jury award that you come away with.
For most people, this is the easiest way to get legal representation. On top of that, there’s no financial risk to the victim and their family.
Cause
You cannot just sue somebody just because your child happens to have cerebral palsy. There are many different scenarios where brain damage occurs during childbirth. The doctors and nurses may have performed as well as they could’ve been expected to, and where their care did not fall below the accepted standard.
Your attorney will have to be able to establish to a jury that medical malpractice was the proximate cause of your child’s cerebral palsy, and they will have to argue it convincingly enough that the jury is motivated to give you all or most of the damages that you are seeking.
There are some cases where the parties you are suing will come forward and offer you a settlement. This will generally only happen if you have a very strong case and if they know that they are about to lose. If this happens, your attorney will work with you to make sure that the amount of money they are offering you is substantial enough to merit you not taking the case to court. Of course, it will always be up to you whether or not you want to take a settlement.