Philadelphia Judge Defends $124.2M Birth-Injury Judgment
September 11, 2026
byA Philadelphia judge has urged the Pennsylvania Superior Court to uphold a $124.2 million medical malpractice judgment arising from a birth injury, 
rejecting challenges to the jury’s causation finding, its $106.1 million future-care award and its decision to hold a hospital vicariously liable even though two individually named obstetricians were cleared of negligence.
The latter issue could prove particularly significant because the trial court relied heavily on Hagans v. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, a decision the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently agreed to review (see MLM, September 2026).
In a 71-page opinion, Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Caroline Turner defended the judgment entered in favor of Jasmine Pagan, Jose Finley and their minor son, identified as K.F., against Albert Einstein Medical Center, Einstein Pediatrics at Holland and pediatrician Dr. Kavita Gupta-Shah.
The defendants are appealing under Superior Court Nos. 1935 EDA 2026 and 1938 EDA 2026.
The lawsuit arose from K.F.’s December 2018 birth at Albert Einstein Medical Center. According to Turner’s opinion, plaintiffs’ obstetrical expert Dr. Howard Mandel testified that K.F. suffered head trauma during the birth process and that a decision to proceed with a cesarean section at approximately 8 a.m. more likely than not would have avoided the trauma.
Months later, imaging revealed bilateral subdural hemorrhages with mass effect, and K.F. underwent emergency neurosurgical treatment.
Following a March trial, the jury returned a $108.6 million verdict, including $106.1 million in future medical expenses. Turner subsequently added approximately $15.6 million in delay damages, producing a molded verdict of $124,187,697.35.
Vicarious Liability Question Echoes Hagans
Among the defendants’ principal appellate arguments is that the evidence was insufficient to impose vicarious liability on Albert Einstein Medical Center because the jury found two individually named obstetricians, Drs. Cheryl Yondorf and Aishat Olatunde, not negligent.
Turner rejected that argument, relying significantly on the Superior Court’s decision in Hagans.
She said the relevant question was whether the plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence that an Einstein employee or agent was negligent while acting within the scope of employment, not whether the jury returned an adverse verdict against a particular employee.
The plaintiffs’ case extended beyond Yondorf and Olatunde to resident physicians and labor-and-delivery nurses. The alleged conduct included labor management, administration and readministration of Pitocin, fetal monitoring and the failure to move to cesarean delivery at approximately 8 to 8:30 a.m.
Turner concluded the evidence permitted jurors to find negligence by Einstein personnel while finding Yondorf and Olatunde individually not negligent. The verdict sheet broadly asked whether Einstein, acting through its obstetric physicians, residents and nurses, had fallen below the applicable standard of care.
That reasoning closely tracks Hagans, where the Superior Court held that a jury need not make an express negligence finding against each individual provider before imposing vicarious liability on a hospital when the evidence establishes negligent conduct by hospital agents.
That precedent, however, is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
As MLM reported last month, the Supreme Court agreed July 29 to review a record $207.6 million judgment against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Hagans. One question is whether a hospital may be held vicariously liable when providers whose conduct allegedly caused the injuries were named as defendants but the jury was not required to determine whether any particular provider was negligent.
Turner said Hagans “directly addresses” Einstein’s vicarious-liability argument, meaning the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could have implications for the legal theory supporting the Einstein judgment.
Judge Rejects Causation Challenge
Einstein also argued the plaintiffs failed to establish the cause of K.F.’s injury to the required degree of medical certainty because Mandel identified three possible mechanisms for the birth trauma but could not identify which actually occurred.
Turner disagreed.
Mandel testified that the injury could have resulted from forceps used for delivery, forceps used to rotate or position K.F., or pressure from a physician’s hand. Turner distinguished uncertainty over the precise physical mechanism from uncertainty over whether traumatic injury occurred.
She said Mandel tied the injury to the traumatic vaginal birth process and testified that an appropriately timed cesarean section would have avoided it, providing sufficient evidence for the jury to resolve causation.
$106.1M Future-Care Award Defended
The defendants also challenged the $106.1 million future-medical award as speculative, inadequately supported and excessive given K.F.’s present functioning.
Turner again sided with the plaintiffs.
Pediatric neurologist Dr. Daniel Adler testified that K.F.’s neurological and developmental impairments were permanent and endorsed the life-care plan as fair, reasonable and necessary. Neuropsychologist Dr. Susannah Hughes also reviewed the plan and agreed with its future-care recommendations. Certified life-care planner Alex Karras organized and priced the recommended care.
The defense emphasized evidence that K.F. currently walks, talks, attends school, feeds himself, takes no medication and receives limited supplemental instruction.
Turner said those facts did not undermine expert testimony concerning his lifetime needs. Evidence showed language deficits, poor coordination, permanent brain injury, low intellectual functioning and an inability to make independent decisions involving safety and activities of daily living.
Economist Dr. Thomas Borzilleri projected approximately $14.25 million for a nonresidential care plan and $106.84 million for residential care. The jury’s $106,144,132 award closely tracked the residential-care projection, which Turner said provided a rational evidentiary basis for the verdict.
She also rejected remittitur, again citing Hagans, where the Superior Court upheld a future-medical award exceeding $101 million and emphasized that an award’s size alone does not establish excessiveness.
Other Challenges Rejected
Turner also defended several evidentiary rulings, including excluding a Social Security disability evaluation that produced a higher IQ score for K.F. and evidence concerning an allegation that he suffered nonaccidental head trauma years after his birth injury. She found the latter allegation unsubstantiated and unsupported by expert testimony connecting it to the permanent brain injury at issue.
The judge also rejected the defendants’ challenge to delay damages on the future-medical award. She concluded Pennsylvania precedent permits Rule 238 delay damages on future medical expenses and that the MCARE Act’s present-value requirement applies to calculating attorney fees and costs, not Rule 238 damages.
The appeals now place the $124.2 million judgment before the Superior Court.
They also put another large Philadelphia birth-injury judgment into an appellate landscape that could soon be reshaped by the Supreme Court’s decision in Hagans. If the justices alter the rules governing hospital vicarious liability, their decision could affect not only the record judgment in Hagans, but the reasoning Turner is asking the Superior Court to apply in upholding the Einstein verdict.