The State - News from July 14, 1985

Kaiser Foundation hospitals have agreed to pay $8.4 million to the parents of a 2 1/2-year-old blind and severely brain-damaged girl who was handicapped by a herpes virus contracted during birth. The attorney for the mother said doctors at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland should have diagnosed the mother’s genital herpes after she complained to doctors a week before the child was born. Kaiser said the San Pablo woman never gave them enough medical history to diagnose herpes or plan a Caesarean section, the appropriate measure in such cases. The settlement reached after months of negotiations supervised by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Myron Martin requires the hospitals to pay the girl’s parents $300,000, along with monthly payments of $2,500 for the rest of the child’s life. She now lives in a special home for handicapped children.