Birth Injury
Because birth injury cases involve minor children, oftentimes birth injury settlements are confidential. Over the last 40 years, BFRR has recovered more than one hundred million dollars on behalf of children who have sustained birth injuries due to medical negligence.
Each birth injury case starts with us getting to know you and your family while listening to your story. We listen carefully to determine where medical malpractice may have occurred and what it has cost you and your child.
Our team will obtain authorizations and handle collecting your medical records so you can focus on recovery. With records in hand, we work closely with medical experts to evaluate each case. We don’t consult with “hired guns.” The extensive network of experts we consult with are real, in the trenches, practicing doctors and nurses who provide honest opinions about whether malpractice occurred. When the experts confirm malpractice has occurred, a case can be pursued. Our team of Kansas City birth injury medical malpractice lawyers skillfully builds birth cases from the ground up and develops the documents, exhibits and testimony necessary to tell a persuasive story.
Do You Think You Might Have a Birth Injury Case?
Proper medical care has the power to heal and restore. Negligent medical care has the power to destroy and tear a life asunder. If you believe your child has suffered harm due to a medical error or medical malpractice that has resulted in a birth injury, you should consider speaking with a birth injury lawyer at Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader.
Due to the complexity, expense, and expertise required of birth injury cases, many firms do not specialize in this unique area of the law. We do. Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader has handled birth injury cases with unparalleled success for over four decades and has been recognized as one of the premier law firms handling birth injury cases in the United States.
Birth injury cases arise in a variety of contexts and can cause life-altering injuries to babies. Malpractice committed during the prenatal period, labor and delivery, or the post natal/neonatal period can all lead to devastating birth injuries. Some common areas for birth injury cases include the failure to diagnose or properly treat preeclampsia, negligent fetal heart monitoring and failure to intervene, negligent administration of labor-inducing agents such as Pitocin, injury from mechanical or forceps delivery, negligent management of shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus injury, meconium aspiration syndrome, failure to diagnose and treat Group B strep infection. These various forms of malpractice can lead to many types of catastrophic injuries, including brain injuries, brachial plexus injuries, spinal cord injuries, and damage to vital organs. Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and cerebral palsy. These conditions require lifelong medical care.
One of the things we often hear in the course of a birth injury case, and one common misconception about medicine in general, is that “medicine is an art, not a science.” Not true. Medicine is very much a science, and there are standards and rules that hospitals, doctors, and nurses must follow to keep babies safe from a birth injuries. Often, hospitals or doctor’s offices have internal standards or policies that obstetricians and nurses are required to follow. Malpractice can occur when these policies are overlooked or ignored. Health care providers cannot just ignore these rules and fall back on “medicine is art” when a patient is injured.
The first job of any birth injury attorney, and one we take very seriously at Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader, is to discover “why” the error occurred. Breakdowns in communication and decision-making are often at the root of birth injury cases. To uncover the root cause of any medical error, it is important to understand how hospitals, doctors, and nurses function at a system-wide level. It is important to know where to focus an investigation and what documents and discovery to ask for. This is one of the reasons why experience matters when choosing a birth injury lawyer in Kansas City, or anywhere else in Missouri or Kansas.
It is also critical for a birth injury attorney to have access to and an ability to work with all types of medical experts. The law requires birth injury cases be supported with expert testimony. The right or wrong expert can make or break a case. Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader has 40 years of experience working with the most qualified medical experts in every medical specialty that pertains to birth related injuries. We know how to locate, evaluate and question experts in order to find the optimal support for your birth injury case.
It is also important for a medical malpractice attorney to keep the end-game in mind. Because birth injury cases involve complex subject matter, anatomy and terminology, a birth injury lawyer must have the ability to simplify the issues and communicate why malpractice occurred and the consequences that resulted in terms a layperson can understand. These cases are not about proving that you understand medicine and are able to master otherwise unintelligible terminology. Too many lawyers would rather sound smart than communicate clearly. Birth injury cases are about teaching why a health care provider’s decision making, or a breakdown in the system, caused an injury, in clear, understandable and relatable terms. At Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader we have done this for over 40 years.