New Jersey family gets $18.5 million in cerebral palsy suit

A New Jersey family was awarded $18.5 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit, stemming from the son's newborn cerebral palsy. The sum was will be paid by Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and an obstetrician who works there, the Star-Ledger reports. The family's cerebral palsy attorney, David Mazie, successfully argued that doctors moved too slowly to perform an emergency C-section in the 1998 birth of Darius Morgan. According to the news source, Mazie said that experts testified at the trial that had Morgan been born eight minutes earlier, he would not have cerebral palsy. "He’s going to be taken care of for the rest of his life," Mazie said. The legal action taken against the healthcare providers was begun by Morgan's birth mother in 2002, but she passed away in 2004. Morgan was adopted in 2007 by his great aunt, Darlene Kim. "We’re happy," she told the news provider in regards to the trial's outcome. "God was on our side." A spokeswoman for the company that oversees the medical center declined to comment. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 10,000 babies in America each year will develop cerebral palsy.