Geoffrey Fieger’s $20 million birth trauma verdict in Barker vs. Hutzel Hospital was named the number one largest in Michigan last year according to Michigan Lawyers Weekly.
The case involved a pregnant woman who was being held at Wayne County Jail when she started going into labor. She was transferred twice in one day to Hutzel but both times was sent back to jail despite complaints of contractions and bleeding.
Within two hours of her last visit to the hospital, she gave birth at the jail. Tragically, her baby suffered from extreme hypoxia resulting in brain damage, cerebral palsy, quadriplegia and blindness.
A Wayne County jury found the hospital negligent.
“The fetal monitor showed the baby was in distress, but still my client was dumped back in jail,” said Geoffrey, who tried the case with co-counsel Jack Beam. “Hutzel’s behavior was reprehensible.”
