Articles Posted in Pennsylvania

The term “birth injury” generally refers to a physical injury suffered by a baby during childbirth. A very high percentage of birth injuries are caused by negligent medical care during labor and delivery. Hundreds of birth injuries occur from medical negligence in Pennsylvania hospitals annually. The good news is that Pennsylvania law allows the parents of injured children to seek financial compensation. This page will look at Pennsylvania’s most common categories of birth injuries and (2) the types of medical negligence that cause them.

Common Types of Birth Injuries in Pennsylvania

Brachial Plexus Nerve Damage

On this page, our car accident lawyers will look at Philadelphia auto accident lawsuits. We will review key points of Pennsylvania law relevant to auto tort cases and we will discuss how much settlement compensation plaintiffs typically get in Philadelphia car accident cases.


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Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

This page will explain Pennsylvania wrongful death lawsuits.  We will explain how the Pennsylvania wrongful death statute works and who is eligible to bring a wrongful death lawsuit and get settlement compensation. We also explain the second cause of action in death cases, a survival action which provides a second path of compensation for the victim’s family


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Pennsylvania Personal Injury Law & Settlements

In Charlton v. Troy, a Pennsylvania Superior Court nixed a $40 million verdict, ordering a new trial in a birth injury lawsuit alleging excessive traction caused a severe spinal injury.

Facts of Charlton v. Troy

The case revolves around the events that occurred during the birth of the Charlton twins. Mrs. Charlton underwent routine prenatal testing at the hospital when she was 37 and a half weeks pregnant with twins. The ultrasound revealed that “Twin B” was 25 percent smaller than “Twin A,” indicating discordant growth and some tachycardia in Twin B.

Under 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8541 et seq., political subdivisions in Pennsylvania, including public schools, receive a broad degree of governmental immunity under Pennsylvania tort law. But there are specific exceptions. In the recent case of Brewington v Philadelphia School District, the state’s high court expanded the “real property exception” to governmental immunity.

Case Facts

A nine-year-old boy was engaged in a relay race during his gym class at a Philadelphia elementary school when he tripped and fell. As a result, he was propelled into the concrete gym wall where he hit and cut his head causing him to lose consciousness. Soon after, doctors diagnosed him with a concussion that prevented him from attending school for nearly two months after the incident and experienced continuing headaches and memory problems for years after. The gymnasium wall in its surrounding entirety lacked any kind of padding to cover the concrete and provide at least some degree of protection.

There have been a lot of interesting personal injury and wrongful death verdicts and settlements in 2015 in Pennsylvania.  Here are five verdicts you will find of particular interest. pennsylvania injury verdicts

$450,000 Verdict – A woman is descending the stairs at her row home when she slips on one of the middle steps. She reaches for the handrail, but just misses it, causing her to fall down the remaining stairs. The woman calls an ambulance which transports her to the emergency room. At the ER, she is diagnosed with a fractured shinbone and a tear of the quadriceps. She has to receive care after the fall given that her leg is immobilized. After the accident, she sues the property-owner, alleging negligent maintenance of the stairs. In her lawsuit, she brings up the fact that she had told the property-manager about how slippery the stairs were on two occasions. At trial, her stair-expert suggests that the stairs were covered with too much polyurethane. This convinces the jury who awards her $450,000.

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statute repose opinionStatutes of limitations can be very unfair.  But as harsh as the SOL can be, a statute of repose can far more Draconian, closing the courthouse steps on cases where the victims did everything they could to bring a timely action.

What is a statute of repose?  It is amazing how many tort lawyers do not know until they learn the hard way.   A statute of repose provides a date certain by which a claim must be brought.  In most states, there are no excuses.   Unlike a statute of limitations, it often cannot be tolled by the date the injury should have been discovered.

I can’t deny there is a purpose to the statute of repose.  The legislature wants to create some outer time limit where a claim is just too old to be pursued, no matter what.  But some states have these short statutes of repose, seven years in Pennsylvania, and only five in Maryland for medical malpractice cases that are just unfair.

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Max Kennerly writes about a lot of new bills being proposed in Pennsylvania. Any legislature can propose a bill and there is always someone in every legislature – on both sides of the aisle – who likes to put out radical bills so they can brag to their constituents about how crazy they are. Still, these proposed bills do not give you a warm fuzzy feeling about the political climate right now for injury victims.

Ultimately, I think the problem is that people want jobs or more stability in their jobs and that fear distracts them from thinking about the unlikely possibility that they will be seriously injured and want to be compensated for those injuries. Politicians love blaming personal injury lawyers because they are an easy target. Often, the people throwing the punches don’t really feel like oppressing tort victims is going to solve anything but they can’t resist grabbing the low hanging fruit of blaming lawyers. To make matters worse, we have a minority of personal injury lawyers who are more than willing to live up to the stereotype.

James A. Goodyear, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, says that because Pennsylvania doctors win a defense verdict in 85 percent of malpractice lawsuits that go to trial, it may be that “too many claims are advancing that shouldn’t.”

Alternative view: good malpractice lawsuits settle before trial.

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