How Are Birth Injury Settlements Calculated In Arizona?

Birth injuries can leave families facing overwhelming medical, financial, and emotional challenges. Parents searching for answers often speak with a Phoenix medical malpractice lawyer in Arizona to understand what compensation may be available and how settlement values are determined.

In Arizona, birth injuries fall under medical malpractice law. Under A.R.S. § 12-561, a medical malpractice action involves injury or death caused by a licensed healthcare provider’s negligence, misconduct, errors, or omissions. When malpractice leads to a birth injury, settlement value is based on both measurable financial losses and non-economic harm.

Below is how these settlements are actually built and evaluated.

Liability for Damages In Birth Injury Claims

The physician, care team, and the hospital or birthing center have a legal obligation to carefully assess the risk of birth injury before the labor and delivery process, carefully monitor both mother and baby during labor and delivery, and react with prompt, appropriate emergency measures to address complications. Proving liability to recover a birth injury settlement requires evidence of the following:

• A doctor-patient relationship was in place
• The medical provider owed a duty of care to treat the patient at the medical community’s accepted level of care
• They breached this duty of care
• The breach of care caused the birth injury
• The birth injury victim and their family suffered damages from the injury

Most birth injury claims are resolved with a settlement. Only about 4% of claims require a trial. 

Understanding Economic Damages In an Arizona Birth Injury Claim

No legal process erases the anguish of a child facing lifelong adverse effects from a birth injury. Depending on the severity of the injury, a child could face effects ranging from nerve damage or mild cognitive impairment to blindness, paralysis, or cerebral palsy. In the worst cases, a birth injury causes the wrongful death of the child. Common economic damages in Arizona personal injury claims include the following:

• Past and future medical expenses
• Therapy, rehabilitation, and special education costs
• Home assistance care
• Costs for adaptive equipment and home modifications
• A parent’s loss of income

Economic damages for birth injury claims are lifelong and substantial. Economic damages are tangible and range in amount based on the severity and permanence of the injury.

Calculating Non-Economic Damages In a Birth Injury Claim In Arizona

Non-economic damages are intangible losses, such as pain and suffering, diminished quality of life, and a parent’s emotional anguish. Calculating intangible damages isn’t as straightforward as totalling economic damages, but physical and emotional trauma are the most difficult aspects of a child’s birth injury for the parent.

To assign a monetary amount of compensation to intangible losses, an Arizona birth injury attorney uses one of two preferred methods:

• The Multiplier Method: This formula takes the total of the economic damages and multiples it by a number between 1 and 5 based on the severity of the injury
• The Per-Diem Method: This formula assigns a daily monetary amount to each day the child is expected to suffer from the injury, multiplied by the number of days a medical expert anticipates the child will experience suffering

A Phoenix birth injury attorney may apply each method and choose the result that obtains the maximum compensation for their client.