A San Francisco jury has awarded $70.9 million to the family of a
brain-damaged boy whose family accused Stanford Hospital and the Palo Alto
Medical Clinic of malpractice for failing to diagnose his genetic disease.
The Superior Court jury returned a verdict Friday in favor of 9-year-old
Michael Cook of Redwood City and his parents following a five-week trial.
Jurors assigned 35 percent of the fault to the hospital, where the child was
born, and 65 percent to the clinic, where he received pediatric care until he
was 2.
Michael was born with the metabolic disorder PKU, or phenylketonuria, which
allows the buildup of an amino acid that is toxic to the central nervous
system. According to medical experts, the disorder occurs once every 10,000 to
15,000 births and can be detected by a test that is required by law for all
newborns. If it is diagnosed early, it can usually be controlled by a
restrictive, lifelong low-protein diet. If untreated, it can cause severe and
permanent retardation.
According to the lawsuit, the hospital conducted its PKU test too early --
four hours after Michael's birth -- to detect the condition, and the clinic
pediatrician never tested the boy despite seeing signs of major developmental
problems. Michael's disease wasn't diagnosed until he was nearly 6, too late
for treatment. By then, his mother was pregnant with another son, whose PKU
was diagnosed soon after birth and who is functioning normally, his parents
said.
Michael will never be able to work or live on his own, is fed through a
tube and can speak only a few words, said the Cooks' lawyer, David Baum.
"He's a very sweet boy. He wants to make people happy," his mother, Cara
Cook, 39, said Monday. "He's also very lonely. He doesn't have any friends. He
doesn't know how to communicate with people. . . . He doesn't know how to play.
Also, his attention span is very short."
Just the other day, she said, Michael said his first four-word sentence,
while being fed: "I want some more."
For years, doctors "kept telling us that everything was going to get better
but that it will take time," Cook said. "My life was running from therapy to
therapy."
Cook, a former flight attendant, said the verdict would allow her and her
husband, David, 43, a laid-off financial officer, to get individualized
therapy for their son and send him to a private school rather than the special-
education classes he now attends in public school. Baum said $56 million of
the verdict was to cover the costs of care, and $14 million was for lost
future wages. The remainder was for suffering caused by brain damage.
David Sheuerman, lawyer for Stanford Hospital, said the hospital followed
standard practice in Bay Area hospitals at the time in conducting its PKU
screening. Not until the following year, 1995, did state health officials
issue guidelines saying the screening should be no sooner than 12 hours after
birth, he said. Whether the hospital should have waited 12 hours was a subject
of dispute among expert witnesses at the trial.
Jurors voted 10-2 to find the hospital negligent and 11-1 to find the
clinic negligent. A three-fourths vote of at least 9-3 is required for a
verdict in civil cases.
Evidently, "the jury felt that something needed to be done to take care of
this child for the rest of his life (and) wanted to find somebody responsible,
" Sheuerman said. He said the hospital was unlikely to appeal the verdict.
A lawyer for the medical clinic was unavailable for comment.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
