Woman injured while giving birth awarded £1.6m compensation

A high achieving city trader has been awarded nearly £1.6m compensation after she was left with life-changing injuries due to errors by her obstetrician when she was giving birth to her first child.

A high achieving city trader has been awarded nearly £1.6m compensation after she was left with life-changing injuries due to errors by her obstetrician when she was giving birth to her first child.

Sarah Davison was earning more than £200,000 a year with Credit Suisse in London. Then in 2008, she gave birth to her first child Freddie at a privately run hospital in London. During her labour she suffered a severe tear which was not properly treated.

Mrs Davison later underwent reconstruction surgery which brought some improvement but she still experienced severe pain and had difficulty in controlling her bowels. She was left with ongoing symptoms which caused her embarrassment and distress and which prevented her from returning to work.

The obstetrician admitted liability and agreed damages for pain, suffering and future medical care but disputed Mrs Davison’s claim for loss of past and future earnings. His lawyers argued that she had made a lifestyle choice to leave her high paid job following the birth of her second child in 2010 and her third child in 2013.

The court, however, rejected that argument and awarded Mrs Davison a total of £1.59m to compensate for her injuries and her loss of earnings.

Mrs Justice Andrews, who heard the case, said: “It appears there was no proper examination carried out post-delivery, so that the severity of the tear remained undetected and thus it was not made the subject of immediate surgical repair and treatment with antibiotics.”

“This is a case in which Mrs Davison’s injury has put paid to her ability to return to any form of work in the financial sector and severely limited the nature of any future employment.

“Many of her undoubted talents are going to go to waste. Her future is uncertain and any work that she does undertake in future is likely to be fairly solitary and considerably less well paid.”

Madeline Seibert, Partner said: “This is a terrible example of a highly talented person having to leave her profession through no fault of her own, with all the financial losses that brings.

“It is not unusual for the other party to dispute the level of damages but as this case shows, the courts will do everything possible to ensure that the victim is fairly compensated.”

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