Settlement Delayed in Infant Death Suit

A financial settlement in a medical malpractice lawsuit, brought by a couple whose baby died of a severe birth defect five days after it was born at a county hospital in Sylmar, has been delayed at least until Sept. 16, their attorney said Monday.

Aileen Norvell Goldstein said a 3 1/2-hour settlement conference Monday before retired Superior Court Judge Robert Nye failed to produce an agreement to end the case without a trial, and the first date when all participants will be available again is not until September.

The conference was scheduled after attorneys for Los Angeles County agreed that DNA tests last month showed that the child who died was the baby Patricia Chavez gave birth to at Olive View Medical Center in January, 1990.

Chavez maintained that the infant’s death was caused by the failure of the county’s medical staff to notice the birth defect.

Initially, the county’s attorneys contended in court papers that Chavez took home a healthy baby and that it was another child that died. After the results of the DNA test showed that Chavez and Reynaldo Ruiz, her boyfriend, could have been the dead child’s parents, attorneys for the county said they wanted to reach a quick end to the case and scheduled the settlement conference.

Goldstein earlier had asked for $250,000 in damages for the medical malpractice and an additional, unspecified amount for emotional distress and other damages.