When Your Baby Is Hurt at Birth, You Deserve Real Answers

Most parents cannot tell from the delivery room alone, and hospitals rarely volunteer it. The answer is in the record: the fetal heart-rate strips, the nursing notes, the timing of decisions, and the cord blood gases taken at birth.

We pull that record and have it reviewed by physicians who read these charts for a living. If the standard of care was met, we will tell you that.

For a child’s claim, 735 ILCS 5/13-212(b) allows eight years from the negligent act, and in no event after the child’s 22nd birthday. Because a birth injury happens on the day of delivery, the eight-year prong is the one that usually controls, which means the deadline is often the child’s eighth birthday, not their twenty-second.

Two situations change this. A mother bringing her own claim generally has two years from discovering the injury, with a four-year outer limit. And if the delivery was at a public or county hospital, a different limitation period applies under 745 ILCS 10/8-101(b). Have the dates checked rather than assuming.

Nothing upfront, and nothing unless we recover for your family. Illinois caps the contingency fee in a medical malpractice case at 33⅓% of all sums recovered under 735 ILCS 5/2-1114. That is a single flat ceiling, not a sliding scale.

Case costs, such as expert fees and record retrieval, are separate from the fee and are set out in the written agreement before you sign. Our guide to what a birth injury lawyer costs in Illinois walks through the maths.

No. Illinois has no cap on damages in medical malpractice cases. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the previous statutory cap in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, 237 Ill. 2d 217 (2010).

What a claim is worth depends on the documented severity of the injury, the lifetime care the child will need, and the strength of the causation evidence.

The hospital can still be responsible. Under the doctrine of apparent agency, established in Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital, a hospital can be held liable for an independent contractor physician where the family reasonably believed that doctor was acting for the hospital.

This comes up constantly with hospitalist OBs and on-call neonatologists. See can you sue the hospital if the doctor was not an employee.

Most birth injury cases resolve by settlement rather than trial, but they are prepared as though they will be tried, because that is what produces a fair number.

One step does always involve a judge: when the injured person is a child, a court must approve the settlement before it is binding. Our guide explains why a judge must approve your child’s settlement.