Attorney: Daryl L. Zaslow
Settlement: $685,000.
Spring 2007

Blume Goldfaden partner, Daryl L. Zaslow, obtained a $685,000. recovery on behalf of young girl with a permanent brachial plexus injury in a case against a delivering obstetrician whose delivery note specifically stated that the delivery was not complicated by shoulder dystocia (the shoulders getting stuck in the birth canal during delivery). Despite the obstetrician’s insistence that there was nothing unusual about the delivery, Mr. Zaslow argued that the delivery was in fact complicated by shoulder dystocia which was either unreported or unrecognized by the defendant, and that the doctor improperly pulled on the baby's head when her shoulders were too large to pass through the birth canal (excessive lateral traction). This excessive lateral traction applied during delivery caused the nerves in the baby's neck to stretch, resulting in a condition called Erb's Palsy (a loss of function of the shoulder, arm and/or wrist and fingers). The case was further complicated by the fact that the girl’s injury was to her “posterior” arm, which statistically is injured less frequently during shoulder dystocia deliveries than the anterior arm. Despite these “defenses”, Mr. Zaslow and the plaintiff’s experts stressed that absent any evidence of an inutero injury, excessive traction exerted by the delivering doctor in the face of shoulder dystocia is the only proven cause of these injuries at birth. Although the injured child has a permanently injured arm, a tendon transfer surgery was successful in limiting the extent of the injury.