Our Florida Birth Injury Lawyers Have Helped Many Families
At Ratzan Weissman & Boldt, we don’t believe that any amount of money can adequately atone for a birth injury. Yet if your child has been hurt by a medical failure, you must choose a law firm that can protect your family’s rights, safety, and welfare.
You need a firm that has the legal and medical resources, expertise, and the commitment essential to successfully pursue a birth injury claim. We can help you sort through the most complicated issues to reveal the root cause of what happened, helping you determine if you have a medical malpractice claim involving cerebral palsy.
Because lives are at stake, negligent doctors, hospitals and staff must be held to the highest standards and must be held accountable. It’s their job to protect us all; it’s what they’re paid to do. Many of them do this everyday with excellence. Unfortunately, some do not. As a victim, you have the legal right and the urgent need for just and fair compensation and the power to hold those who have caused harm accountable.
Cerebral Palsy Lawsuit
In some cases, cerebral palsy is caused by unpreventable birth complications and genetic mutations. However, medical negligence can also be the cause of this devastating birth injury. If medical negligence is the cause, filing a lawsuit and having the responsible parties be held accountable by paying for their errors can help you and your family fund expenses related to the injury including ongoing medical care and treatment, rehabilitation and therapy for your child, attendant care and home adaptations to improve their quality of life. Additionally, the lawsuit can provide you with the compensation that you and your child deserve for any emotional and physical suffering.
Medical Negligence and Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy can result from medical negligence during the time surrounding the birth of a baby. These acts can include failing to properly monitor the baby and or the mother, failing to recognize risky conditions, failing to take actions to prevent injury, and the improper performance of a procedure. Whatever the circumstance, our expert cerebral palsy attorneys can help you file a claim if your child was injured due to negligent care to you or your baby.
What Our Clients Say
FAQs
Medical negligence occurs when a health professional fails to meet the standard level of care expected of them. If your child has developed cerebral palsy due to any of the following, you may have a cerebral palsy negligence claim:
Failure to perform a C-section in a timely fashion
- When an unborn baby is experiencing conditions that are causing inadequate oxygen delivery, a C-section may be the safest way to prevent any brain damage. These conditions include problems with the placenta, maternal bleeding, or problems with the umbilical cord. A C-section allows the rapid delivery of a baby so that they can breathe on their own without needing oxygen from the mother. In this situation, a medical professional must recognize the need for a C-section and may have only minutes to deliver the baby. Failure to recognize this need and to timely deliver the baby may give rise to a claim for negligence resulting in cerebral palsy.
Failure to monitor fetal heart rate patterns
- During labor, it is the responsibility of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to ensure the baby is safe prior to, during, and after the delivery. Monitoring a baby’s heart rate pattern during labor using a fetal heart monitor is critical as these patterns assure that the baby’s brain is receiving adequate oxygen. Failure to monitor the health of the baby during labor may lead to liability if this failure led to missing conditions that resulted in injury to the baby.
Inadequate response to fetal distress
- During labor, numerous causes may lead to inadequate oxygen delivery to the baby. The fetal heart monitor provides signs of these conditions by showing non-reassuring patterns exhibited by the baby. If these patterns are not recognized or not acted upon in a timely manner, permanent injury to the baby’s brain may occur. These actions are below the standard of care and may give rise to liability and your claim for negligence for injury to your baby.
Cerebral palsy is a permanent injury to the brain that can result in a variety of complications. These include a person’s capacity to communicate, learn, see, hear, or move and maintain balance and posture. It is a group of disorders, and one of the most common causes of motor disabilities in childhood. The primary cause is abnormal brain development or damage to the immature brain, often before, during or just after birth.
Signs of cerebral palsy can vary from severe to mild, with some children not displaying any signs until later in their infancy. These symptoms can include:
- Stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes
- Variations in muscle tone, i.e., too stiff or too floppy
- Stiff muscles with normal reflexes
- Lack of balance or muscle coordination
- Slow, writhing movements
- Delays in reaching motor skills milestones
- Difficulties with fine motor skills
- Difficulty walking or crawling
- Tremors or involuntary movements
- Difficulty swallowing, excessive drooling, problems with sucking or eating
- Delays in speech and / or learning difficulties
- Problems with sight or hearing
- Seizures
When a child has cerebral palsy, the signs will vary. The severity will depend on the degree and location of brain injury in each case. If your child has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and the cause was the result of medical malpractice, you may have a cerebral palsy negligence claim.
What can Florida families recover with a Cerebral Palsy Negligence Claim?
In these types of cases, with the assistance of an experienced cerebral palsy attorney, families can obtain compensation for various damages. This can help with all the costs associated with the care of a child with cerebral palsy such as:
- Medical and surgical professional visits
- Hospital care
- Surgical procedures
- Occupational therapy
- Speech therapy
- Recreational therapy
- Physical therapy
- Adaptive home renovations such as wheelchair ramps
- Medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, braces and other orthotics
- Verbal aids
- Visual and hearing aids
- Special education
- Medications
Each state sets their own laws. In Florida in particular, you and your loved ones are able to recover compensation for future living costs, predicted lost salaries, loss of quality of life, pain and suffering, and a loss of companionship.
Note that there is a time limit on when you can make a claim in Florida. There is a statute of limitations and your lawsuit must be filed within two years of the time the cerebral palsy was diagnosed or discovered. In some cases, this statute may be extended to three years. In no case however, will the claim be allowed four years after the date of the injury regardless of when it was diagnosed.

Professional Cerebral Palsy Attorneys Here to Help You
The intricacies of a cerebral palsy lawsuit can be complicated, particularly in establishing a direct link between the healthcare providers’ negligence and the resultant cerebral palsy. It is crucial therefore that you and your family seek the legal counsel of the experienced birth injury attorneys at Ratzan, Weissman & Boldt.
We have over 80 combined years of experience with birth injury and cerebral palsy cases, successfully proving medical negligence as the cause in numerous cases. Our priority is to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve to secure your family’s financial future and to hold the healthcare providers responsible and fully accountable.
Our practice is contingency fee based, meaning there are no costs to you unless we win your case via a favorable settlement or jury verdict.
To have your case reviewed, please fill out our online form here, or call us at (305) 374-6366. All initial consultations are free of charge. Contact us today to learn if you may have a valid medical malpractice claim involving cerebral palsy.
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