Judge Upholds $16 Million Jury Verdict Against Hospital in Baby Delivery Death

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

"A judge has upheld a jury's decision to award more than $16 million to a couple whose baby died during delivery at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital in November 2004.

Superior Court Judge Steven R. Denton signed the judgment Wednesday. Jurors returned a verdict Dec. 5 at the end of a nine-week trial that began in October. They had deliberated for less than a day.

The jury found that Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and two of its doctors were negligent in their treatment of the mother, Teresa Bailey, 35, and caused harm to her and her husband, Robert, 40.

Jurors also determined that Dr. Arturo Mendoza, the director of pathology, committed fraud by making a false representation of fact to the baby's mother. The couple accused the doctor of concealing the baby's true cause of death on an autopsy report.

Attorneys Cassandra Thorson and Julie Parker said in an interview yesterday that the Escondido couple were told their baby died of lung disease when, in fact, the infant died of asphyxia. The boy became stuck in the birth canal, and his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

Teresa Bailey had been sent to the hospital on Nov. 29, 2004, for an induced birth after doctors noticed a problem with her amniotic fluid. However, after she was admitted, she rarely saw one of two doctors assigned to her care. She never saw the other doctor at all, the attorneys said.

“The exact cause of death that she was sent to the hospital to avoid occurred,” Thorson said.

The two doctors had been named in the lawsuit but have since settled."

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