£9 million settlement for 8-year-old girl with cerebral palsy

Moore Barlow has achieved a substantial settlement for a young client with cerebral palsy following negligence arising from circumstances of her birth. 

The case background

Our client is the third child in her family and was born in 2014. When her elder sister was born in 2011 her mother suffered a substantial blood loss leading to an emergency caesarean. 

When her mother attended the same hospital for antenatal care relating to our client, options for delivery were not properly discussed and the circumstances of her elder sister’s birth were not taken into account, even though she had been born in the same hospital. 

During our mother’s labour her mother suffered a placental abruption and our client was born by emergency caesarean section. She was born in very poor condition and after resuscitation, was transferred to another hospital for therapeutic cooling.  Sadly, she has gone on to develop cerebral palsy. She will never be able to live independently, will need life long care and therapies and has a significantly curtailed life expectancy.

Moore Barlow’s medical negligence team is instructed

Her family instructed us in 2017 and we quickly set about getting her notes and obtaining expert evidence. A “letter of claim” setting out the allegations of negligence was served in 2019. It was alleged that if her mother had been properly counselled about the risks and benefits of a vaginal birth compared with an elective caesarean section, she would have opted for the latter. A response was received from the hospital’s lawyers a year or so later denying liability, so we began preparing to issue court proceedings. 

Despite that we were contacted in 2020 by the hospital’s lawyers inviting us and the claimant’s family to a meeting to try to resolve the question of liability before proceedings were issued. We took them up on that offer and liability was resolved on the basis that the hospital was 80% liable for the claimant’s injuries.

That enabled us to obtain a substantial interim payment to allow the family to move to better, temporary accommodation while we worked on fully valuing the claim. 

Securing the financial settlement

We set about instructing a raft of experts in field such as care, occupational therapy and accommodation, enabling the parties to have another meeting to try to resolve the value of the claim in the autumn of 2022. The case settled shortly thereafter for a substantial lump sum and periodical payments for the rest of the claimant’s life which equated to a capitalised settlement of just over £9million. 

The claimant was represented by Sarah Stanton, partner in the clinical negligence team, with assistance from Bronwyn Rae-Le Bourn, solicitor. 

“I would like to thank you Sarah for being amazing throughout the process and for your determination to ensure that our daughter receives her rightful damages due to her. Your tireless support, contribution, determination, and patient is truly appreciated, and we are most grateful. I will like to thank all of the  staff at Moore Barlow who worked or contributed in many ways to make this a success”

Clients father

“We are so pleased that we were able to bring this case to a successful conclusion for our client and her family. While no amount of damages can change the situation, it will enable this family to have a much better quality of life in the future.”

Sarah Stanton – Medical negligence partner

How Moore Barlow can help

If you have suffered an injury as a result of medical negligence, our priority is making sure you get the best outcome and we are here to help you get the answers, support and compensation you need to help rebuild your life.

Our team of specialist medical negligence lawyers has been hand-picked for their specific skills and technical competence in the area of medical negligence claims.

If you would like to find out more or discuss your claim, please contact the medical negligence team.

Birth injury claims

If you feel that you have suffered a birth injury as a result of medical negligence, you may be entitled to birth injury compensation.


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