Case Outcomes – $111.7 Million Award

Family Wins Malpractice Suit

Born with Brain Damage, Girl 6, Gets $111.7M Award

By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
January 28, 2004

Elizabeth Reden feared the worst when one day she couldn’t feel her baby moving inside her. Her due date was five weeks away and she was used to the baby moving often.

On the afternoon of Jan. 28, 1997, the nervous and expectant mother drove herself to her doctor’s office in Huntington.

“I cried the entire way there,” she said yesterday. Doctors told her not to worry. But if doctors had done more, her daughter, Danielle, who is now 6, could have been born without permanent brain damage.

On Monday a civil jury in State Supreme Court in Riverhead awarded the girl $111.7 million for the lawsuit her parents filed against three Huntington doctors – Karen Moriarty Morris, John R. Wagner and Theodore L. Goldman.

It is the largest award for medical malpractice on Long Island, experts say. The actual amount the Redens will receive has yet to be determined, as judges often reduce jury awards

Yesterday Reden, 35, recalled the days before she gave birth. She hardly felt her baby move. Tests concluded the baby was healthy, based on fluid levels and breathing patterns. A sonogram showed the baby was indeed moving and had a heart beat. Doctors assured Reden she would soon feel the baby move. But five days later, Reden felt nothing and went to Huntington Hospital, where Wagner performed a cesarean section.

Danielle came into the world without enough sugar in her blood and not enough oxygen. A CAT-scan found brain damage indicating Danielle would never walk on her own.

The Redens, of Northport, abandoned their dreams of having more children. “We didn’t think it would be fair to divide our attention,” Elizabeth Reden said, so she quit her job as a payroll manager to be with her only child, who has cerebral palsy. Danielle can’t speak more than nine words at a time, has seizures in the middle of the night and wears orthotic leg braces. With help, she can walk now

Yesterday morning, the Redens were still dazed by their victory. “This doesn’t have a sense of reality yet,” John Reden, 38, said. “We just know that when we’re not around, she’ll be able to live a life as independently as she can.”

Danielle speaks in mumbled slurs. The first-grader can spell her name, press shiny stickers onto a book and proclaim a love for Barney. But she struggles with other things like blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Danielle’s parents are hopeful that when she turns 7 on Monday, that will be her newest accomplishment. At times Danielle suddenly holds up both arms and bellows, “I can do it!”