Parents blame death of newborn on two Fresno doctors. Jury says no in emotional trial

In the arms of her lawyer, a Fresno woman cried Friday on the steps of the downtown courthouse after a Superior Court jury rejected her claim that two doctors caused the death of her newborn named Jayden in December 2012.

"Despite overwhelming evidence" was all Fresno attorney David Moeck could say as he consoled his client, Grecia Sanchez, after the verdict was announced in Judge Mark Snauffer's courtroom.

After the verdict, Snauffer said the medical malpractice civil trial was one of the more emotional cases he has presided over.

Moeck represented Sanchez and Francisco Prudente, the father of Jayden.

In December 2012, Sanchez, then 21, went to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno to give birth to her first child.

During 40 weeks of pregnancy, Sanchez had no complications, and ultrasounds during prenatal visits showed her unborn son was healthy, but smaller than he should be. But 36 hours after being checked into the hospital, something terrible happened: Jayden was born "limp and lethargic, without breath or heartbeat, and with fixed, dilated pupils," Moeck told the jury.

On Christmas Day 2012, Sanchez and Prudente decided to take their son off life support.

In the trial, Sanchez and Prudente accused obstetrics and gynecology doctors Jolyn Chen and Minh Tien Tang of negligence in the delivery of Jayden. The two doctors are employed through the University of California San Francsico program in Fresno. Moeck asked the jury to award his clients, both 26 years old, about $5 million.

Chen and Tang were represented by Fresno attorneys Jerry Jones and Abigail Leaf. During the trial, they contended the doctors did all they could to deliver Jayden, a healthy but high-risk baby.

But Moeck said the two doctors wasted precious time when they tried to use a vacuum device for a vaginal delivery when Chen had already declared to hospital staff that an emergency cesarean section was needed to deliver Jayden.

"The baby did not need to die," Moeck told the jury. "If they had taken action this baby would have lived."

During the trial, a jury of six men and six women learned medical terms such as IUGR, which stands for "intrauterine growth restriction," meaning the fetus is smaller that it should be; and deceleration, which describes drops in the fetal heart rate.

Jurors got a crash course on how to read electronic fetal monitoring strips that measure the expecting mother's contractions against the fetus' heart rate.

They also had to view a photograph of Jayden, eyes closed, with a tube in his mouth.

Moeck told the jury that because of the two doctors' inaction, Jayden experienced severe metabolic acidosis caused by a lack of oxygen.

Sanchez checked into the hospital during the evening hours of Dec. 21, 2012. Chen, who was in her fourth year of residency, and Tang, who supervised Chen, accepted Sanchez as their patient during the early hours of Dec. 22, Moeck said.

Monitoring strips showed Jayden was fine until 2:50 a.m. Dec. 23, when the fetus began to show an irregular heart rate, Moeck said. A nurse got so concerned that she left Sanchez's bedside to find Chen, who was delivering another baby, Moeck said.

"It's clear the baby is in distress," Moeck said. "The baby is doing what he can to fight."

More than 20 minutes passed before Chen came to Sanchez's bedside. She evaluated the monitoring strips and ordered an emergency C-section around 3:35 a.m., Moeck said. She called Tang to assist her.

Moeck told the jury that the operating room staff was ready to perform the C-section when Tang arrived at Sanchez's bedside at 3:48 a.m. That was the first time Tang met Sanchez. Without examining her, Moeck told the jury, Tang ordered Chen to try a vacuum-device on the fetus.

"She does not consent for a vacuum-assisted delivery," said Moeck, who told the jury that Sanchez was exhausted from being in labor.

Chen tried the device two times but was unsuccessful. Tang tried it once, but Jayden didn't move, Moeck said.

At 4:06 a.m., 10 minutes after Tang's last vacuum attempt, Sanchez was rushed to the operating room. At 4:12 a.m., surgery began. Four minutes later, Jayden was delivered, but he had no brain activity, Moeck said.

In defending the doctors, Leaf told the jury that "they were using their best clinical judgment" when they decided to try the vacuum device. The vacuum device, Leaf said, was the fastest way to deliver the baby.

Because of advances in medicine, Leaf said, people expect doctors to do more than they can do. " They are human beings," she reminded the jury.

But Moeck told the jury that the defendants tried to hide the fact that Jayden was in distress. He pointed out that Dr. Maurice Druzin, the defense expect, said the monitoring strips showed Jayden was fine up to the point of going to the operating room.

But the plaintiff's expert, Dr. Steve Rabin , testified that the monitoring strips clearly showed Jayden was in distress as early as 3:08 a.m. when he began having very high, then very low heart rates for long durations. And because the baby had not descended far enough in the birth canal, Rabin said, the vacuum pump was not a valid option.

"I would have 'crashed' the mom and taken her to the OR to get the baby out," he told the jury, saying the actions of Chen and Tang were below the standard of proper medical care.

In his closing argument, Moeck told the jury that losing a child is the worst thing a parent could suffer. In this case, he said, Sanchez never got to see her son laugh or cry or see the color of his eyes.

But after deliberating about nine hours over two days, the jury voted 11-1 to find Chen and Tang not negligent. Before the verdict was announced, Moeck said he felt jurors were siding with the doctors because none of them looked at him or his clients.

"I'm stunned," he said.

This story was originally published May 25, 2018 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Parents blame death of newborn on two Fresno doctors. Jury says no in emotional trial."