Local News in Brief : Hospital Agrees to Pay $7,500 a Month to Crippled Girl, 5

A 5-year-old Van Nuys girl who was left deaf, crippled and brain-damaged after she developed spinal meningitis when she was 10 months old won a settlement Monday from Serra Memorial Hospital in Sun Valley, which guarantees a payment of $7,500 a month plus a cost-of-living increase for 20 years, her attorney said.

The attorney, Bruce Fagel, said that, if the child, Tiffany McAliley, lives to be 77 years old, the settlement will be worth $24.5 million.

The settlement, reached in Burbank Superior Court Judge David Workman’s court, ended a six-week trial in a civil lawsuit filed in February, 1984, against the hospital and three attending physicians. Doctors who had been named in the suit had earlier settled their part of the lawsuit, according to Fagel, the attorney for the girl and her mother, Letitia Morales.

The suit alleged that, on Dec. 14, 1981, Tiffany developed a high fever and was rushed to Serra Memorial, where she first was diagnosed as possibly having a blood infection.

The child, however, was treated for flu and subsequently developed meningitis, an inflammation of the brain, according to the lawsuit.

The settlement will pay for Tiffany’s medical expenses.

John McCurdy, attorney for Serra Memorial, said that the judgment will probably be limited to what Tiffany and her mother have been guaranteed--$7,500 a month for 20 years.

The projected $24.5-million pay-out in Tiffany’s case is based on the life expectancy of a person in good health, not on someone in Tiffany’s condition, he said.

By settling, Serra Memorial admits no wrongdoing, McCurdy said.