Angie M. Barsness gave birth in a hospital in December 2016. While in labor, she was given an epidural and a bolus for pain relief. A bolus involves administering a larger amount of epidural medication which increases pain relief but can lead to more numbness and less motor control of the legs. Approximately two hours after Barsness gave birth, a nurse
approached her about taking a bath, saying it would be “therapeutic.” Barsness, who was still experiencing numbness in her legs and had not regained normal motor control, initially told the nurse that she did not want to take a bath. She explained that she was still feeling the effects of the epidural, and that her right leg felt like “a noodle” or “jelly.” With
some encouragement from the nurse, Barsness acquiesced.
After a long hot bath, the same nurse helped Barsness out of the tub but left her standing on her own in the bathroom while the nurse changed the garbage. Barsness then fell and hit the back of her head on the tub. According to the nurse, she instructed Barsness to hold onto the sink while she helped dry Barsness off with a towel. But as the nurse was doing this, Barsness’s legs started to shake, and she suddenly went stiff and fell backwards. The next day, Barsness was complaining about blurry vision, so she was taken in for a CT scan, which came back normal.
In November 2020, Barsness sued Fairview Health Services, alleging medical negligence. In her complaint, she alleged that the fall caused her to experience “concussion, post-concussion syndrome, dizziness, headache, vision problems, lumbar disc herniation, lumbar pain, lumbar radiculitis, sacral pain/dysfunction, thoracic pain/dysfunction, and cervical pain/dysfunction.”
The district court dismissed the complaint and granted summary judgment to Fairview Health Services, finding that the plaintiff’s experts’ affidavits did not explain “how [Barsness’s] claimed injuries differ[ed] from her preexisting injuries” [In September 2016, almost three months before she went into labor, Barsness complained to her doctor about “pain in neck, upper back, mid back, low back and right hip . . . [,] [and] numbness/tingling in right leg.”] and Barsness “failed to create a disputed issue of material fact on the issues of causation and damages.”
The Minnesota Court of Appeals stated in its Nonprecedential Opinion filed on July 29, 2024: “A plaintiff must support their claim of causation with expert testimony if “a layperson could not reasonably understand and make inferences concerning the connection between the breach of duty and injury” … We do not believe that a reasonable lay person would know how receiving an epidural with a bolus could affect the body to the point of causing a patient to fall. Nor would a lay person be able to understand how a fall like this one could cause the specific injuries Barsness says she is experiencing. While a lay person may be able to comprehend that a fall could cause a “goose egg” like the one Barsness had, her alleged injuries are far more medically complex than a simple bump on the head. For example, it is not readily apparent how falling and hitting one’s head could lead to pain in the thoracic and sacral regions of the spine. And it is exceptionally unlikely that a lay person could parse out how Barsness’s post-fall injuries differ from those she was experiencing prior to giving birth … Barsness needs to establish not just that she was a fall risk, but also that the nurse’s alleged departure from the standard of care caused her fall and her lasting injuries. And again, we do not believe a reasonable lay juror would be able to understand whether and how Barsness’s fall caused injuries that were different that those she was suffering before giving birth.”
The Minnesota appellate court held: “we conclude that the district court did not err by concluding that expert
testimony was required to establish a prima facie case on the element of causation … Barsness’s expert affidavits do nothing to differentiate or explain why her pre-fall injuries are different from her post-fall injuries. If this evidence, without more, was presented to a jury, the jury would be required to speculate on which of Barsness’s injuries was the result of the fall or it would have to guess how the fall exacerbated these preexisting conditions. Such speculation is impermissible … we conclude that the proper foundation for Barsness’s experts’ opinions on causation was not articulated in the affidavits. Consequently, the evidence in the record is not sufficient to show that it was more probable than not that her injuries resulted from the alleged medical negligence.”
Source Barsness v. Fairview Health Services, A23-1803.
If you or your baby suffered a birth injury (or worse) during labor and/or delivery or shortly after birth in Minnesota or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Minnesota birth injury attorney (Minnesota Medical Malpractice attorney), or a birth injury attorney in your state, who may investigate your birth injury claim for you and represent you and your child in a birth injury medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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