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DISCLAIMER: Please note that every case is different and these verdicts and settlements, while accurate, do not represent what we may obtain for you in your case.
BIRTH CONTROL PILLS LEAD TO $7 MILLION WRONGFUL DEATH VERDICT
A Beaufort County, North Carolina jury, sitting in Washington, North Carolina returned a verdict of $7 million against the Greenville Family Medicine Clinic.
The victim, a 21-year-old wife and mother of an 18-month-old baby died from complications associated with birth control pills prescribed by the defendant Greenville Family Medicine Clinic.
Although the defendant denied any wrongdoing, it only took the Beaufort County jury 35 minutes to return a verdict of $7 million in favor of the dead woman's husband and young baby.
In addition to the $7 million verdict, interest of approximately $5 million was added for a total recovery to the family of $13,000.00.
Under North Carolina law, interest is payable on personal injury and wrongful death judgments from the date the lawsuit was filed. The young mother died on June 14, 1997 and suit was filed in 1999. Therefore interest from 1999 until the date of the final trial accumulated at the rate of 8 percent per year.
The case had previously gone to trial but the jury in that earlier trial could not make up their mind. Therefore, the case had to be tried again.
In April of 1997 the young mother changed her birth control medication to Nordette 28 birth control pills. Over the next several months after she started with these new birth control pills she experienced severe headaches. The Greenville Family Medicine clinic documented the headaches, nausea, diarrhea, fever and dizziness and noted that she was taking the Nordette 28 birth control pills. However the defendant doctors' clinic continued to prescribe birth control pills for the mother even though the manufacturer of the pills had warned that patients who experiences persistent and recurrent or severe headaches should stop taking the pills.
Two days after the defendants prescribed Bactrim DS Phenergan for nausea and Phrenilin for headaches the young mother was transported by ambulance to the local emergency room with complaints of vomiting, numbness, nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. The young woman's husband was not satisfied with this visit and took her to a hospital in Greenville the same day. By then however, the woman had passed out and was difficult to arouse and was not able to obey commands.
A CT scan and MRI showed that she had blood clots in her brain. Her superior sagital sinus vein was completely blocked and her brain herniated. Life support was removed and she died on June 14, 1997.
The jury accepted the family's assertion that clotting was a well recognized problem with birth control pills containing estrogen and that the warning given by the manufacturer of the drug was completely ignored by the defendants and that the pills caused the fatal cerebral thrombosis.
Awarded: $ 7,000,000 for wrongful death of young mother
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