Appeals court upholds $13.9 million verdict in Trumbull medical malpractice case

Staff report

WARREN

The 11th District Court Appeals has upheld the decisions of a trial court in a case that resulted in a $13.9 million jury verdict for a Leavittsburg family against a pediatrician whose handling of the baby’s birth was blamed for the child developing severe disabilities.

Dr. Tara Shipman, the pediatrician involved, and her medical practice filed the appeal.

The child’s lawyers said Dr. Shipman’s failure to perform a cesarean-section birth was to blame for the child’s disabilities.

The appeal said Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court erred by refusing to allow Dr. Shipman to read into evidence the deposition of a pediatric neurologist who said the child’s brain damage began about 10 minutes after she was born as a result of oxygen deprivation caused by the failure of an anesthesiologist to properly resuscitate the baby.

The appellate court, however, ruled that Judge McKay did not err because the neurologist “does not seem to have” been deemed an expert for the purposes of giving an opinion on the cause of the child’s disability.

Dr. Shipman’s appeal also contained 10 other reasons for the verdict to be overturned, but the appeals court also rejected them all.

The verdict, which was in favor of the family of Oakley Cobb Jr. and his wife, Debra Cobb, and their daughter, Haley, later was reduced from $13.9 million to $9.7 million as a result of $6.5 million in settlements reached by the Cobbs with other former co-defendants in the case.