bigmacamotus said:
I am asking this question for my mother. When she was born in 1938 the doctor misdiagnosed her birth and the result was paralysis on the entire right side of my mother's body and cerebral palsy. My grandmother's water broke and the doctor said she wasn't ready so he sent her home. While at home my mother's cord wrapped around her neck and cut off the air supply to her brain. My grandfather called another doctor and he said to rush my grandmother to the emergency room. He called our family doctor and told him that he needed to deliver my mother immediately or she was going to die. She ended up being a dry birth. The second doctor later told my grandparents that they could take their doctor to court but it would be hard to get another doctor to testify against him so they never did anything about it. Can you please tell me if my mother would have a case today?
My response:
Sorry. Between the many years of legal changes in the medical malpractice field, and the fact that any applicable Statute of Limitations has passed many, many, many, years ago, your mother is, unfortunately a victim of the times she was born into - - the Great Depression was in full swing, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our President.
Orson Welles had scared the bejeebers out of us on October 30, 1938 with his radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" and Hitler ordered Ferdinand Porsche to make the "Peoples Car", better known to us as the Volkswagen - - it was the model 113.
Europe was at war and Adolf Hitler was gobbling up those European countries like candy. Very soon thereafter, the United States would be dragged into that war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and finally, Germany's declaration of War against the United States within days thereafter.
Thus, in 1941, began World War II for America, "a date which will live in infamy" President Roosevelt declared to Congress when informing them and our country of the Japanese attack at Pearl; while seeking a Congressional Declaration of War against Japan.
The reason why I say the above is not so much for a history lesson, but rather to demonstrate to our readers the lengthy passage of time between what your mother and grandmother suffered, and your question today, in the year 2000.
Adding insult to injury, the standards of care in the community have changed dramatically with the times, and also the standards of medical knowledge and practice.
Further, and assuming Mom had a viable cause of action for medical malpractice, just whom would she sue? Undoubtedly, the doctors involved are dead by now, and there's a good possibility that the hospital no longer exists - - and even if it did still exist, the records are surely gone by now.
In short, Mom can do nothing at this point in time.
Thanks for writing.
IAAL
[Edited by I AM ALWAYS LIABLE on 12-07-2000 at 01:10 AM]
