Shea Doucette, now 4 years old, suffered hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and cerebral palsy allegedly as a result of a birth injury…law.com, How a C-Section ‘Scheduling Error’ Led to a $17M Settlement, Colleen Murphy, Jan 2025
Shea’s mother Jenna Doucette was 32 years old when she became pregnant in 2019. During her prenatal care, she was diagnosed with placenta percreta, a form of placenta accreta spectrum where the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall making it difficult to separate at birth. She sought treatment from Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at The Center for Abnormal Placentation at Hackensack University Medical Center, according to the complaint.
The complaint said that on March 8, 2020, Doucette suffered a massive uterine rupture and placenta abruption and then underwent an emergency cesarean section. According to the complaint, as a result, Doucette’s daughter was deprived of oxygen at birth, suffered hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Jenna also required multiple blood transfusions and was admitted to the intensive care unit for placental abruption and massive abdominal bleeding, the complaint said.
Jenna was scheduled for a cesarean section on March 11, when she would have been 37 weeks pregnant, but Zaslow said the high-risk condition his client suffered from indicates that she should have had a cesarean section between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation.
The defense argued that a stable patient with this condition without placenta previa could be delivered at 37 weeks. According to court documents, the defense also argued that Doucette’s right to recovery was barred by the doctrine of assumption of the risk and that the defendants’ treatment was within the accepted standards of care.
The settlement was reached following three days of mediation over five months before retired Superior Court Judge Joseph P. Quinn. Superior Court Judge James Den Uyl presided over the case and approved the $17 million settlement on Jan. 3.