Paul McGivern, Susanne Raab, and the Pacific Medical Law team lawyers, obtained a winning judgment for the infant plaintiff in a trial that was hotly contested, factually driven, and centered on the credibility of the witnesses. The entire case depended on whose version of events the judge would accept.
The infant plaintiff’s mother was 28 weeks pregnant when she went to the emergency room of a hospital with neck pain that radiated into her head and down to her shoulder. She was discharged home and two days later was found at home unconscious and experiencing an eclamptic seizure. The infant plaintiff was born by emergency cesarean, having suffered a severe brain injury.
The trial judge found a nurse and a physician liable for the injuries to the infant plaintiff; the nurse for not taking the mother’s blood pressure among other things, and the physician for failing to consider all information available to him and failing to take an adequate history. The judge found that had these things been done, the mother would have been diagnosed and treated for pre-eclampsia, and the infant plaintiff’s injuries would have been avoided.
Although the defence appealed the judgement, the BC Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision in favour of the infant plaintiff.
https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcsc/doc/2016/2016bcsc938/2016bcsc938.pdf