RALEIGH, NC (July 14, 2026) – In one of the largest verdicts of its kind in the country, a jury in Raleigh, NC has awarded $18.2 million to a 6-year-old boy and his mother for permanent nerve injuries caused during his birth at WakeMed Raleigh Campus Hospital.
Grant & Eisenhofer partners Lisa Weinstein and Gerald Jowers represented Naqah Lake and his mother, Laurel Browne, in the lawsuit, which ranks among the largest medical malpractice verdicts ever in North Carolina. It is also the largest award in a case involving a brachial plexus injury – damage caused to a network of spinal cord nerves that control the shoulder, arm and hand.
The five-week trial convened in state court in Wake County, NC. The 12-person jury reached unanimous verdicts confirming both negligence on the part of the hospital and the resident physician, as well as damages.
During Laurel Browne’s labor, on September 17, 2019, defendant resident doctor noted shoulder dystocia, a condition that occurs when a baby's head emerges, but the shoulder becomes stuck behind the mother's pubic bone. Although it is the anterior shoulder, the shoulder that is stuck behind the pubic symphysis, that is usually injured; in Naqah’s case, it was the posterior shoulder—the shoulder that was not stuck—that was injured.
The doctor performed a fetal vertex rotation, a maneuver that should never be performed to relieve a shoulder dystocia. This maneuver rotates the baby’s head while the shoulder remains impacted, and therefore caused Naqah’s global pan plexus injuries. He was born with permanent nerve damage to his left brachial plexus, which rendered his left arm, shoulder, and hand useless for life.
The hospital tried to argue that Naqah’s injury occurred before birth, in utero, despite the contemporaneous record by the defendant resident doctor that she had performed the fetal vertex rotation. Because the injury occurred to Naqah’s posterior shoulder, it made the plaintiffs’ case harder to prove causation of injury.
Naqah’s family alleged that the facts established negligence and that the medical care and treatment did not comply with the minimal standard of care for obstetricians in the State of North Carolina. They argued that the medical team did not use all available or appropriate maneuvers to manage Naqah’s delivery.
As a result of the defendants’ negligence, plaintiffs argued, Naqah experienced, and will continue to experience, physical and mental pain and suffering, disfigurement, disability, and permanent injuries.
Following the two-phase trial, presided by Judge Winston C. Gilchrist, the jury unanimously returned a verdict for Naqah of $18.2 million, comprising $2.2 million for economic damages and $16 million for non-economic damages.
Grant & Eisenhofer partner Lisa Weinstein is regarded as one of the nation’s preeminent lawyers representing women and children who have suffered birth injury and trauma.
“Baby Naqah had all five nerves in his left brachial plexus avulsed and ripped from his spinal cord at birth by the negligence of the doctor who performed a maneuver that should never have been performed,” said Weinstein. “The jury rightly recognized that Naqah will never be able to play sports that require both hands, hug his mother with both arms, hold his own child with both arms, or simply clap his hands, because of a ‘never maneuver.’ We are grateful for the jury for holding WakeMed accountable for the lifelong disability it caused.”
The case, brought in the General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division, in Wake County, NC, is captioned: Naqah Maxwell Lake, a minor, by and through his Guardian ad Litem, Christopher Duggan, and Laurel Browne, individually v. WakeMed (File No: 22CVS011664-910)
