So, I tried Googling for this information but my google-fu failed me, so I thought I would turn it over to the smart people at the Dope
I’m writing a story in which a newborn baby is rendered permanently and totally blind because of failure by her doctors to provide care for a condition they didn’t bother to check for, but that they should have. This would have happened in 1983.
What I was looking for was an idea of what the average award would be for that type of malpractice, if her parents sued the doctors/hospital. More specifically, I was thinking of having them win a $3 to $4 million award. Is that reasonable for that time and situation, or would that be so outlandishly high that it would seem ridiculous to the reader if they had any legal background?
Does it really matter? I seriously doubt any reader would bother to look up how a $4 million award fit in, and ultimately, it doesn’t sound like it matters at all to the story. Awards can be all over the place, anyway.
Obviously a trillion dollar award might create suspension of disbelief problems, but if a reader wants to call you on what you’re planning, it’s the reader’s problem, not the writer’s.
It only matters in as much as the character’s school and college tuition (as well as special tutors, books, computer software, etc. for her) is paid from the interest on the invested money from the award, and then when she grows up and gets married, she and her husband buy a house with part of it, then continue living on the interest while they work doing what they love for very little money. So, it has to be a lot of money like that, since it would be safely invested with a low but reliable rate of return.
Sounds a bit high for 1983. Its a large award, even for today, and blindness, while it does cause a permanent change in future lifestyle, is not in itself an injury which causes the need for extensive future medical care nor does it imply a future inability to function without extensive assistance, which is what a lot of the superlarge verdicts account for.
Also, what state is your case being tried in? Bronx County (NY) awards the highest jury verdicts in the nation. A few states (including California, I believe) have a verdict cap, I don’t know when they were instituted
It would be tried in New York, in Westchester County (just north of Bronx County, actually – the character is from New Rochelle, which is very close to the Bronx.)
Medical malpractice - loss of vision in one eye as an adult, Westchester County, 1997 = $615,000
Westchester would be very likely to be a county where low jury verdicts are returned. Generally, any place where jurors are likely to be middle class+ and homeowners, verdicts tend to be lower.
A better parallel, however, would be if you could find a situation pertaining specifically to a newborn. I would think (but can’t prove obviously) that juries would be more sympathetic to that situation, even (or especially) if they’re upper middle class homeowners. The situation I mentioned above was for a baby rendered permanently disabled in the late 70s or so (not blind, but a number of other arguably more serious issues), probably as a result of doctor inaction.
3-4 million sounds pretty high for the OP’s scenario, given the time frame specified. The doctors would likely have appealed something like that.
I’m going to nitpick you here a little. Blindness is a profound disability which could theoretically justify some blindingly (ha!) high verdicts.
In my jurisdiction, one of the compensable categories of damages is “loss of a normal life.” Obviously, that’s a very subjective calculation, and is where some really big numbers can be asked for (and given), even in a case with relatively small pain/ & suffering, future medical, etc.
That said, it’s sounds high for '83, but not so much that it would pull me out of the story. Plus, jury verdicts are a hassle to research for professionals, so it’s doubtful that your average reader is going to be able to easily find something that shows your number is outside the realm of possibility. Unless you find evidence of a “record verdict” for less than $3mm after '83, I say go for it.
Physician here, never a target of a lawsuit (well, except for one nutcase but he gave up) but an expert witness in med mal cases dozens of times over the years.
The basic game of medical malpractice here in Illinois is to have the case tried in Cook county in front of jurors who are generous with other people’s money and have no hope of actually understanding the medical issues, especially after the nuances are filtered by attorneys and expert witnesses.
The number and amount of ridiculous awards are legion. Equally unfortunate are those who get nothing, or incompetent physicians whose licenses are not revoked. But this thread is not about our wunnerful legal system; you just want to know if 3-4 million is realistic.
3-4 million is just fine for your story, and a very believable amount. It is not a typical award, just a believable one for a story. For a baby born in the early 80s, a high profile case might have limped along til 1990 or so; depending on the venue I don’t think that amount is so out of line it would ruin the story.
Note the 9.8 million for loss of hearing in a kid from failure to diagnose meningitis. And as an ED doc, I can’t tell you how unhappy that makes me. Another thread.
Thank you And, really, the specific amount will probably not be mentioned, as Cecilia, the character in question who is an adult during the story, was not born in a barn and doesn’t brag about her huge trust fund or anything. But, it will be known by its fruits – i.e., it is money safely invested at a rate of return that will probably not exceed 1.5 to 2 percent, yet it pays for, in addition to providing her with tutors, Braille books, special computer stuff, etc., an exclusive private school from K to 12 that has $35,000 per year tuition now and therefore was probably at least $20 to $25,000 per year and up when she went there, and then pays tuition for her to get her bachelor and master’s degrees from Columbia University, and then was enough to sustain her and her husband so that any money they earned was basically gravy – they only worked because they loved what they did, they didn’t need the money. (And, she was actually hoping to get enough money from the work they did that they didn’t need the interest from the trust fund, so she could give thousands of dollars to charity and to her church every year instead – she and her husband are Mormon and very religious.)
Anyway, thanks for the assurance that this is not going to make anyone’s head explode.
FWIW, that rate of return (2%) is much much too conservative over that time period.
Money invested in stocks and or bonds by any conservative trust fund manager in 1990 should have averaged at least 5 or 6%/yr over the following 20 years.
In round numbers, $2M in a fund in 1990 would be worth about $5M today at 5% an $9M at 8%. Variables include how much was taken out along the way and how aggresively it was invested.
But total blindness is much more than twice as damaging as loss of vision in one eye. I could easily see a jury that would award 615k for one eye could awarding 6 million for both.
I don’t have detailed knowledge, but I know someone who was delivered by forceps and it severed some nerves to one arm, causing reduced constrol. When she turned eighteen, she had to decide whether to sue the doctor who delivered her. I don’t know why the suit was deferred, but at least part of it definitely had been.
Oh, okay I was trying not to be too overinflated in my rates of return. That’s even better, then. (Though it would have been won and invested around 1986 or 87…otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to start kindergarten at the expensive school in 1988. :)) The overall rate of return would be lowered, though, I think, by the fact that they use the interest every year to pay her tuition – her parents are of humble means, they could never have sent her to a $25k a year school without this money. (I’m less than pleased, as a person, at the idea of someone “getting rich” off of a malpractice award like this, but it works as an interesting paradox in the book – she has led an incredibly priviledged life because she is blind, so in the end, she’s happy to be disabled, weird as it seems. :))
