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Attorney: Dennis M. Donnelly
Settlement and Trial Verdict: $2,500,000.
Winter 2007

Blume Goldfaden Partner, Dennis M. Donnelly represented clients in a wrongful-birth case against two obstetrician gynecologists (OB/Gyn), and a radiologist. An Essex County jury awarded $1.5 million in damages on the claims surrounding the OB/Gyn care, bringing the plaintiffs’ recovery to $2.5 million.

Our clients claimed that her treating OB/Gyns failed to perform a prenatal alpha-fetoprotein blood test (AFP test) during the prenatal period to detect spina bifida, (an incomplete closure of the spine). Proper testing would have found the defect, allowing her to end the pregnancy. Our clients’ daughter, due to this significant birth defect, had back and brain surgery a week after her birth in 2002. Currently, she is incontinent and wears orthotics on her ankles and feet. Our client had consented to the AFP test, but, somehow, because of failures in the doctors’ follow-up, it was not performed. Prior to trial, Mr. Donnelly had settled the claims against a treating radiologist for $1,000,000. That radiologist failed to take prenatal ultrasound views which would have shown signs of spina bifida.