Hudgell Solicitors has secured a damages settlement worth up to £23.7m for a 20-year-old who was born with Cerebral Palsy due to the negligent treatment provided to his mother during pregnancy.
The settlement was agreed between legal representatives and approved in the High Court almost three years after a Judge ruled that Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust had been at fault for the lifelong injuries caused.
The agreement meant a further trial, which had been scheduled to debate the final compensation ‘quantum’ figure, was avoided.
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Award will ‘cover cost of lifelong care and support’
Hudgell Solicitors have acted on behalf of the man’s family, who now live in East Yorkshire, for 12 years.
The settlement, which includes a lump sum award of £7.8m and annual payments for the rest of the man’s life, is to be used to fund a purpose-built home for the 20-year-old and his family, with dedicated space for live-in carers and specialist facilities and equipment, including a dedicated hydro pool room.
The final capital value of the award, which also covers the cost of all therapy, treatment and equipment requirements, as well as loss of lifelong earnings and for the injury suffered, is expected to total around £23.7m, should the man live to his life expectancy.
To date, the family have had £1.6m in interim payments.
‘Exceptionally tough’ legal battle
Solicitor Chris Moore, joint national head of clinical negligence at Hudgell Solicitors said:
This has been an exceptionally tough road for my client and his family, particularly given the long legal battle we had over many years, during which time the Trust simply refused to accept that it had been at fault at all.
That day in court almost three years ago when the judge ruled in our favour was hugely significant, and that has been matched by what has happened now, as we are delighted with this final settlement because it will ensure my client has all the care, equipment and support he requires for the rest of his life. That is a huge weight off the mind of his loved ones.
The frustration again has been the long difficult road which has been put in front of the family to reach this point. They have been made to wait far too long for this day.
We were ready to attend at the High Court last week for another trial as we’d been unable to come to an agreement with NHS Resolution over the final settlement figure.
It meant the family, and my client, had to go through yet more stress of arranging travel to London and preparing for another lengthy court hearing, only for the defendants to then agree a more sensible offer of settlement outside the doors of the court.
It doesn’t need to be done this way and I often think defendants forget about the impact it has on people who have already been through so much. The final settlement could have been reached sooner with a more sensible approach, in my view.
As claimant lawyers, we have a duty to ensure we only agree to a settlement value which would be approved by the Judge, so once the ruling of liability had been made, the ball was never in our court to settle this unless we were made an acceptable offer which reflected the advice of the many independent experts we’d consulted.
Case centred on delay in treatment
The case had centred on the care provided to the boy’s mother back in 2004 when she was 37 weeks pregnant, and concerns she raised when attending an antenatal clinic about a continued lack of movement from her baby.
It was alleged an obstetrician wrongly reassured her all was fine following a scan. This meant she felt reassured and relaxed about continued reduced fetal movements, only returning to the hospital four days later as she was concerned at not even feeling any movement when having a warm bath.
Her son was born at the City Hospital in Nottingham having suffered a brain injury due to chronic partial hypoxia. He was left severely disabled and in need of 24-hour care.
Although it was agreed as part of the case that the boy would have suffered no neurological injury had he been born up to two days earlier, the Trust denied the obstetrician carried out a scan at the antenatal clinic and the mother’s claim that she had raised concerns about reduced movement.
At the liability trial in 2021, the Judge said he was satisfied the obstetrician had undertaken a scan at the clinic on the day and that he believed the boy’s mother’s account was correct as to what took place.
Hudgell Solicitors first issued a claim for damages from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in 2016, with legal aid obtained to launch court proceedings.
Mother thanks legal team for ‘complete dedication to family’
The mother of the 20-year-old, who cannot be named due to a court order, thanked her legal team of Mr Moore and Barrister Howard Elgot, of Parklane Plowden Chambers, for always fighting for her son.
She had previously spoken about how it took the family 14 years to get funding for a downstairs bedroom to be built in their current home, which still lacks specialist facilities, and how, despite their ‘complete unconditional love’, caring 24 hours a day for their son had been ‘draining’. She said:
Our son needs 24 hour care which of course, throughout his life, myself, my husband and other family members have provided, but this is something we can’t do forever, so that is why this is so important.
It has taken us 12 years to reach this day, the day where we can really start to plan for the rest of our son’s lives with some certainty and security.
It needed us to endure years of denials from the Trust, a trial in court where I was basically accused of not telling the truth, and then a three year wait to secure this final settlement.
I have to thank my legal team for never giving up, and for never forgetting that this was about giving my son the best possible future life. I feel that together, we’ve got a result which will do that, and that is all we have been fighting for.
Given what we have been though, I’d say to any other parent to get legal advice immediately if you have a child born with a brain injury and you’ve got suspicions things weren’t right. It’s a shame that people don’t admit mistakes when so much is at stake for a family. It impacts on the entire family every day, for the rest of their lives.
I know people will see the value of the potential final settlement and think it is a lot of money, but this will be money to provide the care our son needs, helping us give him the most comfortable life now, and crucially ensuring he has 24 hour care when we are not around in the future.
I can’t thank Chris Moore and Hudgell Solicitors enough. When we had difficult times and periods where we have been feeling down, but Chris was so positive and picked us up by pledging to get the result we needed for our son. He did just that and we are so grateful for his dedication, and belief in us.
