The birth of a baby should be a joyous occasion. However, thousands of babies are injured each year by the medical practitioners responsible for delivering them safely into the world. When your infant suffers an avoidable injury at birth, a Baltimore birth injury lawyer can fight to help you recover compensation.
Birth injuries frequently result in severe, permanent health conditions. Birth injury compensation can provide much-needed financial relief for the high costs of medical treatment and the lifelong costs of caring for a child with a severe birth injury.
Why Choose Us?
Over 25 Years of Experience, Millions Recovered
Attorney Steven H. Heisler is an award-winning Baltimore personal injury attorney. For over 25 years he has fought, along with co-counsel, to help Baltimore families recover the birth injury compensation they need after their child was injured by negligent medical staff. He holds a track record of recovering many multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts for the clients he represents.
Some of Attorney Heisler’s many legal distinctions and involvements include:
- Martindale-Hubbell Client Champion Silver award
- Super Lawyers
- Member of Maryland State Bar Association
- Member of the American Association for Justice
- Member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA).
When you need a passionate lawyer on your side, you can trust that Steven Heisler is committed to fighting for financial justice for your family. His track record and client testimonials show that he achieves results for his clients, and they appreciate both his aggressive representation and his caring demeanor.
Why You Need a Baltimore Birth Injury Lawyer
It’s not easy to recover birth injury compensation without the help of a Baltimore birth injury lawyer. Attempting to file a claim without legal representation is a mistake. Usually, you’ll be left with one of two outcomes: a denied claim or a much smaller payout than you qualify for.
When medical professionals make a mistake, their first priority is to protect themselves. If possible, they may avoid acknowledging that your child was injured at all. If the injuries are impossible to ignore, they might take advantage of the parents’ lack of medical knowledge by claiming they didn’t cause the injuries.
If you consult a lawyer and they feel you have grounds for a birth injury claim, you’ll need their help as you move through the process of obtaining compensation. Fortunately, your Baltimore birth injury lawyer will handle the extensive work such a case entails, leaving you free to focus on caring for your child.
Common Birth Injuries in Baltimore
Birth injuries can take many forms. Sometimes they’re immediately obvious, such as a skull fracture caused by the use of forceps. Other times, it’s impossible to see that your child was injured during the labor and delivery process. One of the most common types of birth injuries is brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen. This sort of injury can lead to many other health conditions, such as cerebral palsy. Often, birth injuries related to oxygen deprivation aren’t identified until much later, when a child begins missing developmental milestones.
Some of the most common forms of birth injury include:
- Brain damage
- Oxygen deprivation
- Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy
- Shoulder dystocia
- Erb’s palsy
- Cerebral palsy
- Brachial palsy
- Skull fractures
- Broken bones
- Forceps injuries
- Nerve damage
- Brain hemorrhage
- Paralysis
- Infection.
Conclusively identifying a birth injury takes a combination of a pediatrician’s diagnosis and a Baltimore birth injury lawyer’s ability to build a case for negligence. As soon as you receive a diagnosis or begin to suspect that your child’s health and development aren’t what they should be, you should get in touch with a lawyer and explore your options.
Proving Negligence in a Baltimore Birth Injury Case
One of the most important reasons you need a Baltimore birth injury lawyer is to prove negligence. Negligence is a central concept in personal injury law. This legal concept is demonstrated by proving four points:
- Someone owed a duty of care.
- That duty was violated.
- As a result, someone else was injured.
- You can provide proof of the damage.
This is how general negligence is demonstrated in personal injury cases ranging from car accident injuries to workplace accidents. However, proving negligence in a medical malpractice case is more complicated. Instead of proving general negligence, your lawyer needs to prove professional negligence.
Essentially, this means that professionals like doctors have a duty to provide patients with attentive and appropriate care. Proving negligence against a health care professional entails proving that their actions fail to meet the standard of care they were expected to provide given their professional responsibilities.
A key part of proving that a doctor acted negligently involves obtaining the testimony of a medical expert witness. This individual is typically also a doctor who is qualified to review your medical files. The medical expert witness must give an expert opinion on whether your labor and delivery team acted negligently during your child’s birth.
Your Baltimore birth injury lawyer will review your medical files and identify whether you have grounds for a birth injury claim. If they think you do, they’ll then do the work of collecting evidence to build a case and obtaining expert witness testimony. If those steps are successful, your lawyer will move forward with identifying your target compensation goal and notifying the attending doctor’s insurance company. They’ll then enter into negotiations with the insurer with the goal of arriving at a satisfactory settlement amount.
Understanding Baltimore Birth Injury Compensation
Severe Birth Injuries Often Bring Seven-Figure Settlements
Compensation for a Baltimore birth injury is intended to cover the costs associated with the child’s injuries. Birth injury compensation is usually split into two primary categories: economic damages and non-economic damages. The first, economic damages, reimburses you for present, past, and future costs associated with the injury. With birth injury cases, this amount is often substantial.
When a child suffers a birth injury that leads to a lifelong health condition, such as brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, the costs of care can be extensive. Furthermore, they may never be able to hold a job or care for themselves in adulthood.
Examples of items you can claim under economic damages include:
- Medical bills
- Medical devices
- Attendant care costs
- Therapist and specialist costs
- Lost bills and wages.
A severe birth injury often leads to lifelong care costs. At the same time, one parent may temporarily or permanently need to stop working to care for the injured child. An experienced Baltimore birth injury lawyer will explore how your family’s finances have been impacted by your child’s birth injury, collecting evidence to identify the economic damages amount you should seek.
The other primary type of birth injury compensation is non-economic damages. This is meant to reimburse you for the non-financial impact of the injury. Common examples of non-economic damages include:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional anguish
- Loss of companionship
- Loss of the ability to enjoy life.
Watching a healthy child suffer an avoidable birth injury is often a heartbreaking experience. Non-economic damages are a way of acknowledging the pain the injury has caused. Many states, including Maryland, place a damages cap on the amount of non-economic damages you can recover in a medical malpractice claim.
Maryland state laws in this respect are somewhat unique. Before 2009, the state’s medical malpractice non-economic damages cap was set at $650,000. As of 2009, the cap is raised by $15,000 on January 1 of each year. The 2023 cap is $875,000, while the 2024 cap is $890,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re considering pursuing birth injury compensation in Baltimore, you probably have many questions. Here are some of the most common questions new clients ask about birth injury compensation.
How long do I have to contact a Baltimore birth injury lawyer?
You should contact a Baltimore birth injury lawyer as soon as you suspect your child has suffered an injury at birth. The time limit, or statute of limitations, for filing a lawsuit seeking injury compensation is generally three years in Maryland. However, the time frame grows more complicated when a birth injury is involved.
When children are involved, Maryland law allows the three-year limit to begin at age 18. That means parents have until their child’s 21st birthday to file a lawsuit. However, waiting that long is a mistake. In any personal injury case, it helps to contact a lawyer as soon as possible after the injury.
How can I know that my child’s medical condition is the result of a birth injury?
Identifying a birth injury typically requires the combined efforts of a Baltimore birth injury lawyer and an experienced medical specialist. Birth injuries can take many forms. Some are immediately identifiable at birth, while others might not be identified for months or even years.
If you suspect that your child has suffered a birth injury, you should attend a free consultation with a Baltimore birth injury lawyer and learn what steps you should take next.
Do I need a Baltimore birth injury lawyer to recover compensation?
You need to work with an experienced Baltimore birth injury lawyer if you hope to recover adequate compensation for a Baltimore birth injury. Birth injuries are a form of medical malpractice. Generally speaking, medical malpractice is one of the most complicated types of personal injury cases, as there are additional legal requirements when it comes to proving medical negligence. In turn, birth injuries are often one of the most complex forms of medical malpractice.
Recovering compensation requires accurately assessing the lifelong costs of care and medical treatment for your child. Not hiring a lawyer, or working with an inexperienced one, puts you at risk of not recovering the compensation value your family needs.
How long does it take to recover Baltimore birth injury compensation?
It’s hard to predict how long it will take for a Baltimore birth injury case to unfold. It can take time to accurately identify the likely long-term impact of a birth injury, and this knowledge is necessary to estimate the lifelong costs of the injury. It also takes time to collect evidence and build a case proving that medical negligence occurred.
Finally, whether the insurance company is willing to settle significantly impacts the timeline. Going to court will likely cause your case to take longer, but sometimes that’s a necessity if you hope to recover the birth injury compensation you need.
How much does a Baltimore birth injury lawyer cost?
Attorney Heisler and his co-counsel work on contingency. This means you don’t pay until your case is finished, and you only pay if he wins your case. This arrangement allows clients dealing with emotional and financial stress to get the legal representation they need without worrying about the upfront costs of a birth injury lawyer.
Birth injury cases can be complex, and you probably have additional questions. Call Baltimore birth injury lawyer Steven H. Heisler and schedule a free consultation to discuss your options for recovering Baltimore birth injury compensation.
Call a Baltimore Birth Injury Lawyer Today
No amount of money can undo the tragedy that occurs when a child is seriously injured at birth. However, fighting for birth injury compensation can help ensure that your family doesn’t struggle financially to provide your child with the best possible care. Birth injury compensation brings you the peace of mind that comes from knowing your child will always be provided for, both now and into adulthood.
Attorney Heisler understands what’s at stake when an infant suffers birth injuries in Baltimore. He’s ready to review your case and discuss how he can help fight to recover the Baltimore birth injury compensation your family needs.
Attorney Steve Heisler
Steve Heisler decided in 1996 that he was going to focus his law practice exclusively on injury cases. Since then, he has been representing injured people against insurance companies, disreputable medical practitioners and Big Pharma, and doing it with compassion, honesty and level-headed rationality. [ Attorney Bio ]