$5.2 Million Verdict Against Hospital Unprepared for Emergency Caesarean

Orange Hospital and its chief administrator were named in a suit on behalf of a child who suffered brain damage due to a delay in the baby’s delivery. When the woman entered the hospital on a Saturday night in 1982, and it was determined the baby was in fetal distress, it took more than one and one-half hours for the hospital to locate the necessary medical personnel to perform a caesarean, and to transport the patient to an operating room far removed from the labor and delivery area.

Because Blume Donnelly attorneys showed that the hospital’s chief administrator knew for five years that the distance between the obstetrical area and operating room posed a danger, the jury awarded a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against the executive and the hospital of $5.2 million.

Handled by Carol Forte, this was the largest verdict ever attained in New Jersey by a female attorney.