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Cleveland birth injury attorneys provide guidance on important filing deadlines for birth injury cases

Boy Child Painting Wheelchair The birth of your child is one of the most exciting times in your life. For months, you went to prenatal visits and took vitamins, fixed up a new nursery, and looked through baby name books. You may even have packed your bag weeks before the big day arrived.

Things in the delivery room were going well, at first. But then things changed. When your child was born, he wasn’t breathing right, or perhaps he wasn’t breathing at all. And although he was resuscitated, your son’s brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes. You were concerned, but everyone told you it was okay, nothing you really needed to worry about.

Early on, you probably didn’t notice much difference between your baby and other babies. You were hopeful everything would be fine. But as time went by and other babies started developing rapidly (playing with toys, crawling, babbling), your child seemed to be lagging behind, maybe even far behind. Then you started to worry: what will the future hold for my precious child? Could this have been prevented?

The Eisen Law Firm can help you get to the bottom of what happened, to figure out whether your child’s injury was preventable. If his injury was caused by medical negligence, The Eisen Law Firm can help you recover the extraordinary amount of money that your child’s care and future support will require, so that you can be assured that your child is well taken care of for the rest of his life.

So, how long do you have to file your birth injury lawsuit?

The short answer is that you have until your child’s nineteenth birthday to file suit. That’s the technical, legal answer. That’s the answer that gets you a solid “B” on your law school exam in first year torts. But the real answer, the “A” answer must include a strategic component.

Even though you could wait until your child’s 19th birthday, that would be a mistake. It’s simply too long to wait. Once you hire an attorney to help you with your birth injury lawsuit, that attorney needs time to work up your case. Facts of your birth injury case must be obtained, all relevant medical records from doctors, hospitals, and anyone else involved must be read and analyzed, and a sworn affidavits from a medical experts supporting your claim must be obtained in order to file a lawsuit. All of this requires time. And the clock is ticking.

Memories of key witnesses fade over time, too. These witnesses are most likely medical professionals who assist in multiple births daily. Getting a clear and reliable response about your specific case is much easier if the incident has just happened. Plus, some witnesses might move away or even pass away.

Medical records may go missing or be destroyed. These medical records are crucial to your potential case, and locating them is much easier do shortly after birth than it is a decade or more later.

But perhaps the most important reason to bring your case early is that a successful outcome will provide you with the financial resources you need to assist your child for LIFE. Part of a birth injury lawsuit includes a life care plan that will outline the services and expected costs for those services for the life of your child. Why unnecessarily delay life-changing support for your child? Why not do what you can to secure these resources as soon as possible?

While it makes sense to contact a birth injury lawyer sooner rather than later, the attorney may not necessarily file suit right away. Filing too soon can be a problem. In order to recover for your child’s future care, your attorney will have to prove to a “reasonable degree of certainty” what your child’s future injuries and care costs will be. When a child is too young (before about age three), it can be very difficult to determine with the necessary certainty what those injuries and costs will be. You only get one shot in court, and you can only receive compensation for what you can prove. So, if you file too early before the full extent of your child’s impairments are know, you may not be fully compensated.

Deciding precisely when to file suit can be complicated. But an experienced attorney should be able to make the right strategic decision, balancing all of the competing interests before going to court.

If you are considering a birth injury lawsuit, contact our skilled Ohio birth injury lawyers today

If you suspect your child was injured due to a medical professional’s negligence, contact the birth injury attorneys at The Eisen Law Firm today for a free consultation. Time is of the essence in birth injury claims, so call 216-687-0900 or contact us online.