$5.0 Million Settlement in Medical Negligence Action Against Hospital For Failure to Preserve Evidence.

The Plaintiff was 37-year old female who presented to the hospital for delivery of her baby at 37.1 weeks gestation. She delivered a healthy baby boy. Within approximately 30 minutes of delivery, she was suspected of having uterine atony. She was transferred to the ICU for further management and blood transfusions. She was subsequently diagnosed with uterine atony, post partum hemorrhagic shock, acute severe life-threatening blood loss anemia, multisystem organ failure, DIC, acute respiratory failure with hypoxia, thrombocytopenia and leukopenia. The complications caused permanent bilateral kidney failure. As a result, she underwent hemodialysis and is presently on a kidney transplant list awaiting a donor kidney. in an effort to investigate whether the uterine atony and subsequent complications were was by any medical negligence, the Plaintiff sent a request for all labor and delivery medical records, including fetal monitoring strips to the hospital. The hospital was not able to produce certain key fetal monitor strips for 2 hours prior to the delivery. The hospital’s inability to produce these records prevented the Plaintiff from establishing a prima facie case against the hospital and treating OB. As result, the hospital was subject to a legal presumption of negligence. The hospital admitted it could not produce the records but denied the applicability of the presumption. Ultimately, the case settled for $5.0 Million.