Long Island Cerebral Palsy Lawyer

The Duffy & Duffy Long Island cerebral palsy lawyers have helped thousands of people like you in pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit and understanding professional medical advice. We know you have many unanswered questions about birth injury: Why did this happen to my child? Is it my fault? Did I do something wrong? I liked my doctor, but did he do something wrong? How am I going to take care of my child’s condition? How will I be able to work and care for my child’s pain? Will my child ever be independent? What will happen to my child if something ever happens to me?

Our birth injury attorneys can answer your questions and help in pursuing compensation that you and your child are entitled to.

Detecting a Birth Injury in a Child

It is estimated that birth injuries may occur as often as seven out of every 1,000 births. It may not be apparent until a few months or years after birth that a birth injury did indeed occur. However, some immediate signs of birth injury includes: Failure to breath immediately upon birth; seizures within the first 48 hours after birth; fetal distress, swelling or marks (bruises or abrasions) on your baby’s face, head, or shoulder; lack of muscle tone (baby appears to be floppy); and one arm is limp.

Signs of birth injury that appear later in life are: difficulty with speech, lack of coordination, drooling and an uneven gait.

Birth Injury Causes

Medical negligence or malpractice may have caused cerebral palsy or your baby’s birth injury if medical professionals or medical experts failed to: ascertain your full medical history, properly treat a maternal infection, properly diagnosis and treat risk for premature birth, properly use medical equipment such as forceps or vacuum extractors, diagnose and treat a baby that was too small or too big, properly monitor and treat maternal blood pressure and blood sugar, or improperly delayed Cesarean section.

At Duffy & Duffy, our Cerebral Palsy lawyers in Long Island understand the medical and legal terminology, evidence, and procedures to effectively assess and process your cerebral palsy case in order to potentially recover compensation for the life-long care of your child. Please call the Duffy & Duffy Cerebral Palsy lawyers for a no-commitment consultation & free case evaluation.

Advice from the Duffy & Duffy Cerebral Palsy Attorneys

There are millions of healthy babies born each year. Unfortunately, thousands and thousands of babies are born with Cerebral Palsy. If you suspect that your child’s Cerebral Palsy was caused by medical malpractice, you need to learn about your rights and what you need to do to protect your child’s future.

For instance, with an experienced Long Island attorney you can successfully link obstetrical negligence to cerebral palsy while pursuing medical malpractice cases. We will explain what is involved in pursuing your cerebral palsy lawsuit, your child’s claim, and what you can expect to receive in return, known as compensation. The amount of compensation you may anticipate obtaining in a cerebral palsy lawsuit is determined by the nature of your injuries. This encompasses all practical and intangible losses your family has endured since the cerebral palsy diagnosis.

Causes of Cerebral Palsy

Most people associate a lack of oxygen with brain injury as the cause of Cerebral Palsy. While this can happen, only 10% of Cerebral Palsy is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. Our Long Island Attorneys also handle cases where the brain injury of Cerebral Palsy is caused by premature birth, blood disease, maternal infection, jaundice, and other sources of brain injury.

Most (90%) of Cerebral Palsy brain injuries occur before or during birth. A range of medical errors can cause this, including:

• Waiting too long to order a cesarean,
• Forcing the extraction of the baby (forceps or extraction),
• Umbilical cord wrapping around your baby’s neck,
• Baby was born blue and/or did not cry upon birth,
• Baby scored a low Apgar test, indicating various problems,
• Other negligent acts (often commented on by the nurses or other medical professional staff that something should have been done differently)

Cerebral Palsy damages range from very mild to very severe. Damages include developmental delays, abnormal muscle tone (extremely tight and stiff or ultra relaxed and floppy), and abnormal and uncontrolled movements (jerky and abrupt or slow and writhing). There are also commonly skeletal, speech, vision, dental and bladder/bowel control problems as well.

At Duffy & Duffy, our experienced cerebral palsy attorneys understand Cerebral Palsy and the medical mistakes that can cause it. We also appreciate the long-term consequences and the life-long expenses required to care for your child throughout his or her life.

Our experienced cerebral palsy lawyers will carefully evaluate medical records, interview medical expert witnesses, investigate, work within the legal system as well as deal with insurance companies. You may receive financial compensation for life-long expenses for your child’s cerebral palsy treatment by working with a Duffy and Duffy Cerebral Palsy Attorney.

Our cerebral palsy attorneys focus their practice on helping injured people. We have had thousands of medical malpractice cases, including many Cerebral Palsy lawsuits. While our past results do not guarantee your success, we have had excellent results with verdicts and settlements in cases involving Cerebral Palsy.

We are well qualified to help you and your family every step of the way on your birth injury cases so you can focus on what really matters, taking care of your child.

Please contact us today to speak with one of our Cerebral Palsy attorneys.

What Qualifies as Medical Negligence in Cerebral Palsy Claims?

A big reason why medical negligence can make for uniquely complicated civil cases is that negligence has a different legal definition for doctors than it does for most other people. Rather than a generic duty of care that everyone owes equally to everyone else, medical professionals are subject to a standard of care that requires them to act the same way any other physician with the same knowledge and experience would likely act under the same circumstances.

This means that in addition to showing a specific error by an obstetrician or some other healthcare provider directly led to your child developing cerebral palsy, you will also need to show that the error in question was something that no equally qualified physician would have done under the circumstances. The common causes of cerebral palsy mentioned above usually meet these criteria, but support from a seasoned legal professional can be crucial during insurance negotiations or during a trial in civil court.

Building a Strong Evidence-Based Lawsuit

We can also provide vital help when it comes to complying with the procedural and evidentiary requirements of a cerebral palsy malpractice claim. To start with, one of our lawyers can take the lead in fulfilling the certificate of merit requirement codified in New York Civil Practice Law & Rules § 3012-a, which requires you to have formal support for your claim from at least one licensed medical expert.

We can help you find, preserve, and make effective use of all formal medical documentation related to your child’s care, including records of what treatment they have received in the past and statements from physicians about what care they will likely need in the future. Finally, we can guide you through the process of establishing the nature and value of losses your child will experience because of their diagnosis, including:

• Short-term and long-term expenses for specialized medical care
• Disability management expenses, including costs of wheelchairs and other assistive equipment, home/vehicle modifications, and in-home support
• Lost future working and earning capacity for your child, as well as any loss of work income you experience because you have to stay home to care for a disabled child
• Physical pain and discomfort
• Emotional trauma and distress
• Lost overall quality of life

There are no artificial caps placed by New York state law on civil recovery through medical malpractice claims, which is different from how many other states govern cases like this. We can help you proactively seek restitution for a lifetime’s worth of damages that your family can reasonably expect to deal with due to preventable cerebral palsy.

Why Work with Duffy & Duffy on a Cerebral Palsy Claim?

Money alone can only do so much to mitigate the immense harm a doctor’s negligence during birth may cause your child to experience for the rest of their life. If you have cause to file a cerebral palsy lawsuit in Long Island, you will not just want an attorney who will focus only on the financial aspects of your claim.

You deserve an advocate and ally who will provide personalized assistance from the beginning to the end of the legal process, even if it takes years to resolve and requires a fight in civil court. Every member of our team at Duffy & Duffy is ready to take on that kind of fight for your family’s best interests, and we have years of experience achieving good results from claims much like yours.

Consult with a Long Island Cerebral Palsy Attorney

We invite you to consult with a Duffy & Duffy Long Island Cerebral Palsy Lawyer as soon as possible. We represent injured people and are well-equipped to fight to get you all of the compensation you deserve. The state of New York imposes limits on the time you have to file a lawsuit. If you do not file within the time limit, your birth injury lawsuit may be forever barred and neither you nor your child will receive the compensation you need to deal with the life-long affliction of Cerebral Palsy.