Florida Birth Injury Lawyer

Attorney Sean Domnick: If you at all suspect that there was a problem during either the pregnancy or labor that caused injury to your child even if you’re not sure about the extent of the injury or if you’re not sure did it happen because somebody didn’t do something right or it just happened because sometimes things happen you need to consult an experienced birth injury lawyer sooner rather than later and there are a couple of reasons for that the first reason for that is that every state has limitations on the time period in which you can bring this lawsuit some states are as short as a year and so you don’t want to find out that you have a a good medical malpractice case but you can’t get in the door because it’s already been shut by the statute of limitations that’s number one number two is that evidence can get lost can get misplaced memories can fade so you want to get started and Gathering the evidence in a case as soon as possible and the third reason is is the lawyer is going to make sure that the evidence that needs to be done and often it’s in the ter in in terms of video evidence that you get to show the progression of this child as they go from 0er to 6 months to a year to 18 months so that a jury can see the journey those are some of the big reasons why you need to hire a birth injury lawyer sooner rather than later if you suspect that your child was injured because of malpractice.

Attorney Sean Domnick: We evaluate the strength of a birth injury case looking at a couple of things really one is did somebody do something wrong that you have to start there did they run a medical stop sign so you start with that then you look at if the answer to that question is yes what are the extent of the injury you can’t bring a lawsuit because somebody almost got hurt you have to bring a lawsuit because somebody got really badly hurt particularly with the birth injury case because they are long and they are expensive so you want to make sure that you have good proof that somebody did something wrong and good proof that that wrongdoing caused significant permanent injury.

Attorney Sean Domnick: One of the most important things that we do once we decide to take on a case is making sure that our clients are as involved in the process as they want to be we have some clients that really don’t want to be very involved we have other clients that want to be involved on a regular basis so you start trying to figure that out it can take a little while for each case to settle into its Rhythm but communication is key and setting expectations is key so at an initial interview I speak with my clients about the process what it is that they can expect we talk about some of the delays that are built into the system that don’t mean that somebody isn’t working for them but just that there are delays that are there and it can take a while to get to trial because these cases if we are going to try them can take three or four weeks to try so getting a judge to have that amount of time available on their trial calendar can sometimes be a challenge for us but at the end of the day communication is key with our clients.

Attorney Sean Domnick: So each state has its own what we call tort laws which are the laws that apply in negligence which is all medical malpractice is malpractice is a fancy way of saying negligence when you’re dealing with health care providers and so each state has its own rules and why does that become important because there are states Florida where you have to have an affidavit from an expert before you can actually start the process some states don’t have that type of thing so you need to understand those things and as I said the time limits that each state has you have to make sure you’re very aware of that because if you blow through a time limit then you can’t bring the lawsuit so those are the things that I think are probably the most important otherwise the rules are generally the same and certainly the medicine is the same how a woman goes into labor in Oregon or tenness or New York or Florida is the same the standard of care of how you deal with situations is the same [Music].

Attorney Sean Domnick: Often in our birth injury cases one of the defenses is not just that the doctor that we’re suing did something wrong but they might say well this other person did something wrong or they might say that the parents did something wrong they that the mom didn’t go to all of her prenatal visits didn’t take medicine that she should have or took medicine she shouldn’t have been taking with that so you have to evaluate that in each of the cases and again it boils down to the same type of evaluation is somebody going to believe that they did something that they shouldn’t have done how did that matter in the outcome and most of the time when the defense is trying to blame somebody else it really didn’t affect what happened but it is their effort to evade responsibility for what they did wrong.

Attorney Sean Domnick: Preservation of evidence is incredibly important in birth injury cases and often there are videos that parents have from very early on sometimes during the labor process although most hospitals don’t allow that to occur anymore because it was too good of evidence of what really happened in our cases so that text messages emails things that that can be erased or lost or forgotten it’s important for people to make sure that they keep all of that together [Music].

Attorney Sean Domnick: The most rewarding thing about representing a family where there’s been a birth injury often we talk oh it’s that moment when we resolve the case and the money is there and we know it’s going to take care of their life that’s a big time but really the most rewarding moment is not at that moment it’s 3 four 5 6 seven years down the road because once you represent somebody you’re with them forever you you don’t just say oh we’re done and shut the door and so then we get to see what the money that we got for them did to make their lives better and that’s an incredible feeling because the money that we get for our clients is not the goal the goal is how can we use that money to make their lives better more productive more fulfilling.

Attorney Sean Domnick: Staying up to- date with medical research and and legal developments in a birth injury case is incredibly important medicine is changing constantly unlike when I first started practicing law where I’d have to go down to the local medical school and go to the library and pull out the books today we have computers so we’re able to do an incredible amount of research on the computer we have different programs that we utilize to educate us and of course I’ve got experts that I’ve developed relation relationships with that I will call them and say I’m looking at this case here’s what I’m struggling with help me to understand it so you try to bring all of these tools to Bear to make sure that you are up to dat on things because I didn’t go to medical school and but I end up having to learn this piece of medicine as well as the defendant doctor knows that in order to be able to handle the case.

Attorney Sean Domnick: So I started doing birth injury cases when I was a young lawyer I’d probably been practicing for maybe 2 years maybe 3 years when I handled my first birth injury case with an older lawyer and once you handle one birth injury case you want more because you are representing these little kids who through no fault of their own start life with so many obstacles but they’re so resilient and our job is to get get them some help and to be able to make a financial difference in their life so that they can live the best life that they possibly can and not just for 1 year 5 years 10 years but for 30 years 40 years 50 years 60 years.

Attorney Sean Domnick: The most common causes of birth injuries that we see typically fall into two categories the first category is what we call a hypoxic injury which is oxygen deprivation during the birthing process the second time that we see most frequently is what we call shoulder dystocia cases where the baby’s shoulder gets stuck during the delivery and if the health care provider the doctor the Midwife doesn’t handle it in the way that they’re supposed to you can end up tearing the nerves in the neck that lead into the shoulder and so starting life out with a crippled arm.

Attorney Sean Domnick: There are two really challenging aspects to handling a birth injury case the first is that they’re very complex they really take a lot of knowledge of the medicine and really understanding what it is that’s in the records and understanding the language that’s being spoken the second part of it really isn’t related to the technical aspect of it but when we get the records we review the records and really the hardest part about these cases is calling up a parent and telling them that they have a good medical malpractice case involving the birth of their child and what does that mean that means that their child was injured because somebody wasn’t paying attention somebody did something wrong it didn’t have to be those are really tough conversations.

Attorney Sean Domnick: In all medical malpractice cases and in birth injury cases we have to have expert Witnesses the court requires us to have them and often it comes down to a battle of experts so we want to make sure that we have the absolute best experts we have people who are at the top of their field that are testifying in our cases it’s not cheap to get these people but knowing how complex these cases are what we’re looking for is somebody who’s well credentialed very exper exped in the issue that we’re dealing with in that particular case and third is are they a good communicator because ultimately we’re going to have to explain to a jury what happened and why and so you want to make sure that your expert Witnesses are really good teachers and good communicators [Music].

Attorney Sean Domnick: I think the biggest misconception that people have about birth injury lawsuits is that just because there is an injury that that means that there is a case in order for us to have a case we have to be able to prove several things we have to prove that somebody did something wrong that means they did something that they shouldn’t have done or they failed to do something that they should have done then we have to prove that that thing that they did wrong caused injury but for the actions that were taken the failures that were done this injury wouldn’t have happened and then because these cases are so expensive and time consuming we have to have a significant permanent entry that occurs for example in shoulder dystocia cases you can have an injury to the shoulder during the birth that is temporary and then heals after 6 months or a year that’s typically not a case that you’re going to bring because the expenses of it don’t make it worth it on the the other hand if you have a shoulder injury where 1 2 3 four nerves are torn away at the neck and the arm is no longer useful then that’s a case that you would take [Music].

Attorney Sean Domnick: When we’re evaluating a case and trying to determine whether an injury was caused by medical negligence or malpractice which words are interchangeable with each other the first thing we have to do is meet with our clients we need to get their story because often what we have learned is what the parents observed are not really reflected in the medical records so we need to know what that story is then we have to get the medical records we have to organize them have them reviewed and then we combine the story from the parents along with the medical records we have our medical experts then review them and they’re going to tell us based on that whether or not we have a case that can go forward.

Attorney Sean Domnick: The damages that are recoverable in a birth injury case can fall into three different categories the first category is what we call economic damages those are going to be medical bills that were caused by the negligence and sometimes those medical bills can run into the tens of millions of dollars when you have a child who suffers a hypoxic brain injury loses oxygen during the birthing process so that’s the first type of Damages that you talk about the second type of damages or what I call human damages and that is pain and suffering disability and lack of capacity for the enjoyment of life so the things that are the most important that’s the second category and the third category where you have really outrageous conduct by the health care provider you can have punitive damages which are meant to punish or deter and say what you have done is so far out of bounds that you need to be punished for it.

Attorney Sean Domnick: The emotional aspect of birth injury cases is really hard it it does take its toll on you as a lawyer but the way to handle it is to understand what it is that that I’m doing and why I’m doing it all of our cases really have two purposes the first purpose is to help the family to help the baby in that particular case the second purpose is to make the world a better place and a safer place and that is to say from what we have accomplished in this case we’re sending a message out to other people you need to be careful you can’t run through that medical stop sign you need to treat people properly and so my goal at the end of the day is to never have any other clients that is people aren’t harming babies because they’re careless because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing that would be the thing that would make me the happiest [Music].

Attorney Sean Domnick: So the process of handling and going through a birth injury case can be complex because first we have to gather the records often that can take two or 3 months to get those records from the hospital then we have to review them look at them make sure they’re organized make sure we’ve gotten the complete set of Records after we’re comfortable with that then we have to have our experts review them we use really top-notch experts not people who are just sitting around saying gee I hope a lawyer sends me some medical records to review today because they don’t have anything else to do our experts are actively practicing their heads of hospitals they’re teaching at the best universities so we send the records off to them but because they are busy with a real practice it can take two or three months for them to to be reviewed and in States Florida before we can pursue an actual claim in court we have to go through a pruit process where we get an affidavit from our experts that says this health care provider did something wrong that caused injury and then we send that to the health care provider and then there’s a 90-day period that we can’t file the lawsuit so under the best of circumstances it’s probably a 6 to 8 month time period from when somebody walks into my office for the first time to when we can actually file the lawsuit and that’s not because we’re not working as hard as we possibly can but that’s the delays that are built into the system.

Attorney Sean Domnick: So technology and birth injury cases is incredibly important about 15 years ago or so we went from paper records into electronic records so making sure that we have all of those records that can be stored in so many different places at the hospital or at the doctor’s office take somebody who’s got experience in knowing what should be in a complete medical record chart so we know the technology of that then because it’s all in the the computer there’s stuff called metadata which tells us when somebody went into the person’s chart what they reviewed and if they made any changes and you’d be shocked at how often we go into that metadata into the computer records and find that there have been changes in the medical record in a way that they should not have been so understanding the technology on that component of it is incredibly important technology then as we move forward is also important because our job is to be able to communicate either to a jury or if we’re trying to get the case settled to an insurance adjuster what happened in our case so we use a lot of Technology we use video we use demonstrative evidence simulations things that to make sure that we can bring what happened in our particular case alive so that it’s not just some abstract thing but people see it feel it and know it.

Attorney Sean Domnick: So one of the problems of handling birth injury cases is that these children are so young that you don’t know the extent of the injury that they have suffered where that becomes a problem for us is that states have something called statutes of limitations those are time limits on when you can actually bring a lawsuit in an estate Florida it’s 2 years from when you knew or should have known of the reasonable possibility of malpractice so you have to be aware of those limitations while is that you are monitoring the progress of the child so th that’s the interaction that happens with regard to that but usually by the time the baby is 2 years old you have a pretty good idea of whether or not the injury is extensive or not.

Attorney Sean Domnick: Key factors that influence the outcome of a birth injury case are first and foremost the baby the child who has been injured people want to help little kids who have been injured through no fault of their own because somebody didn’t do something that they ought to have done the other thing that you’re looking at is really who’s telling the truth is there a story here that’s not making sense and for our cases because these cases are expensive and complex as a plaintiff’s Laurer you don’t take medical malpractice cases that you don’t think are incredibly strong because that’s not good for the client cuz they’re not likely to win anything and putting them through a lawsuit to end up with nothing makes no sense so you’re trying to figure out what the story is and my job as a lawyer is figuring out how to communicate to a jury why this happened and that is why is it that a reasonably well-trained healthc care provider who typically didn’t get up that morning looking to cause injury made what we believe was a simple mistake and so we start looking for the answer to that question to try to communicate because people want to know that why did this happen and so some of the things that we’re finding out more and more today is for example physician and healthc Care burnout the doctors and the nurses are being overworked spending too many hours and because of that they’re tired and when you’re tired you make mistakes.

Attorney Sean Domnick: Most of our cases settle and again that a big reason for that is that we make sure that if we take a case that it’s a really rock solid case so when it comes time to talk to the other side about settling the case what are the factors that we’re looking at one is the economic damages what is that life care plan how much is it going to need to take care of this child and there are lots of ways for us to work to maximize the benefits that are going to come for the family then we look okay there what do we think that is likely to happen if we go to a jury with regard to the human damages the pain the suffering the loss of enjoyment of Life the disability those types of things so based on experience you try to come up with what is reasonable under those circumstances you’re evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your case and you’re evaluating as you start negotiating which is always a back and forth type type of thing is there an offer that’s being made that is going to make that significant long-term difference in the family’s life if the answer to that question is yes then you need to think long and hard about settling the case if the answer to that is no then it’s an easy decision but the decision is always the clients.

Attorney Sean Domnick: I’ve had so many cases over the years that it is hard to say this is the case for me but I had a a case a couple of years ago with a little boy that the care that was given was so so so bad and what had happened was there were obvious signs of distress during labor the Midwife waited and waited and waited way too long to call the doctor doctor by the time the call went out to the doctor the doctor didn’t respond quickly and as a result this little boy was profoundly brain injured you would hold him in your arms and you’d hear the breathing but he couldn’t roll over on his own he couldn’t communicate he was blind and you have young parents who all of a sudden this is thrust upon them having to deal with this they love their son of course but it’s incredibly taxing to have to take care of somebody who has 24 hour a day 7 days a week 52 weeks out of the year year after year needs and what’s the biggest fear that parents have in these situations it is what happens when they’re gone who’s going to take care of my child and so when you make a recovery in a case that that you have taken care of the needs of this child and this family for the rest of their lives and that you can take at least that fear away from them and you make it so that the parents can actually get sleep because they have help they can actually go on vacation and they can lead somewhat of a normal life it’s a great feeling [Music].