Do you handle birth injury cases, and how do they work in Texas?

What these cases are, medically

The recurring patterns are known to every labor-and-delivery unit: fetal monitoring strips showing distress that was missed or watched too long; a cesarean decided late or performed late; oxygen deprivation, the injury behind many hypoxic brain injuries and some cerebral palsy diagnoses; shoulder dystocia managed with force that stretched the brachial plexus nerves, the injury families come to know as Erb's palsy; medication and induction errors; infections and conditions left undiagnosed in mother or child. None of these outcomes proves negligence by itself, deliveries can go wrong without anyone failing, and an honest case begins by finding out which kind of wrong this was.

How the answer is actually found

The delivery documents itself minute by minute: the electronic fetal monitoring strips, the nursing entries, the cord blood gases drawn at birth, the timing stamps between the decision for a cesarean and the incision. Reviewing physicians read that record against the standard of care, and the defense will read it against a different story, genetics, infection, prematurity, events long before labor, which is why these cases are causation wars fought with maternal-fetal medicine specialists, neonatologists, and pediatric neurologists. Texas's expert-report gate, covered on its own page, applies with full force, so the screening happens before filing, on the records, by qualified physicians, and a family deserves a firm that will tell them plainly what that screening shows, in either direction.

The two clocks, and the trap between them

Texas law splits a birth injury into claims with different deadlines. The child's own claim, for the injury, the impairment, the lifetime of consequences, is constitutionally protected through childhood: the statute's attempt to force suit by age fourteen has repeatedly been held unconstitutional, and courts preserve the child's claim until two years after the eighteenth birthday. But the claim for the child's medical expenses before age eighteen, often the largest present-day number in the case, belongs to the parents, and it runs on the ordinary two-year clock. Families told, accurately, that the child's rights are protected for years sometimes learn too late that their own claim quietly expired, and the ten-year statute of repose stands behind everything as an absolute wall. The safe course is a calculation, early, of every clock in the case.

At your family's pace

These are long cases about long futures, built around a life care plan and the child's actual needs, and no family should be rushed through them. When you are ready to have the records reviewed and the clocks mapped, Silver Key Law will do both candidly, in a consultation that is free and private.

Injured in Arizona? Some rules on this page are Texas-specific. Arizona differs on points that change outcomes, including pure comparative fault and government-claim deadlines. See our Arizona answers or call (888) 508-6967.

Related: The Expert Report Requirement · Texas Malpractice Damage Caps · Submit Your Case · All Common Questions

This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes depend on facts; talk to a lawyer about yours.