A Cook County family has agreed to accept a $35 million settlement to end a lawsuit accusing Northshore University Health System and an embattled ex-doctor of committing medical malpractice during labor and delivery of their children, one of whom lives with severe disabilities.
Attorneys from Romanucci & Blandin issued a release April 10 discussing their representation of Jason and Alisa Hasler, on behalf of their daughter, who was born Oct. 29, 2015, at Evanston Hospital, shortly after her twin brother, who was uninjured during his birth.
The family’s lawsuit blamed then-Dr. Fabio Ortega, and the hospital system, “for medical decisions that did not meet the standard of care for delivering the mother’s high risk, premature twins,” according to the law firm. “The case centered on prenatal decisions in the days and hours preceding the c-section delivery, the type of incision used during the delivery and the unusually long length of time, 14 minutes, it took to deliver the girl,” who now has cerebral palsy.
Anderson, Rasor & Partners, of Chicago, which represented Northshore and Ortega, moved for partial summary judgment in January. The case proceeded to trial in Cook County court, which lasted about three weeks and ended in a deadlocked jury about a week before the settlement.
In December 2021, at age 75, Ortega pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving two female patients, earning concurrent three-year sentences in state prison. Several other former patients initiated civil litigation against Ortega, who lost his medical license. The family’s complaint noted it didn’t choose Ortega to serve as obstetrician and alleged reliance on the hospital “to provide appropriate, qualified and competent medical personnel.”
The Haslers filed their complaint in December 2019. They said on Oct. 19, 2015, Alisa Hasler was hospitalized while only 27 weeks pregnant due to complications. They accused Ortega of leaving “the hospital during his 24-hour on call shift, despite assurances to the family that he would remain on site,” according to the law firm, further chastising a lack of communication and monitoring throughout the day. They said another doctor recommend delivery on Oct. 28, 2015, but Ortega was late to the Oct. 29 surgery and used a transverse incision instead of vertical and took 14 minutes to deliver the second twin while “experts stated the accepted standard of care for delivery of a baby with a c-section is one to three minutes.”
Upon delivery, the original complaint stated, the Hasler’s daughter “was depressed, limp, apneic and pale/blue,” was observed to have “numerous bruises” and “suffered severe metabolic acidosis, requiring resuscitation and medical intervention.” On Nov. 2, 2015, the baby was diagnosed as having suffered bleeding around the brain.
In moving for partial summary judgment last year, the defendants said the family shouldn’t be allowed to use testimony from its standard of care experts for conduct before and after the actual c-section because their legal theory rested on arguing the surgery itself caused the injury and lifelong disability.
“The only allegations of negligence relate to the type of incision chosen,” according to the motion, along with the amount of time for the delivery following the first baby and failure to obtain umbilical cord blood gases. The defendant opposed allegations about the timing of the surgery because the family’s own experts also said a transverse incision would’ve yielded the same delivery difficulty earlier in the day.
The defendants also challenged the allegation Ortega violated the standard of care by not discussing strategy with the assisting surgical resident because a family expert never said what harm resulted from that alleged violation.
“This case centered on the reasonable standard of medical care this little girl was entitled to,” said Stephan Blandin, of Romanucci & Blandin. “She was entitled to the obstetrician overseeing her birth having a plan, to have the most experienced doctor performing the surgery and not to have a resident practicing on her mother, and to be born safely and in a reasonable amount of time. This little girl’s life would be exponentially different if that had happened."
The case proceeded to trial in March in Cook County Circuit Court, ending in a hung jury. Rather than take the case through another trial, the two sides announced the settlement on April 7.