Seattle Cerebral Palsy Lawyers

Cerebral palsy treatment in Seattle

Seattle Children’s runs a Tone Management Program for children with spasticity or dystonia, cerebral palsy among them. Neurosurgery, orthopedics, rehabilitation medicine, occupational therapy and physical therapy plan each child’s care together. The options run from therapy, bracing and oral medicine to Botox and phenol injections and an implanted intrathecal baclofen pump. You do not need a referral to book; the program takes calls at (206) 987-2114, option 2.

The hospital says it is the only hospital in the Pacific Northwest that offers selective dorsal rhizotomy, a spinal nerve operation that lowers leg spasticity in some children with spastic cerebral palsy. Its Surgical Tone Management Clinic decides who is a candidate. That clinic also sees families without a referral from their pediatrician.

Boyer Children’s Clinic was organized in 1942 by doctors, parents and volunteers to serve children with cerebral palsy in a community setting. It now works mainly with children from birth to three, nearly 1,500 of them a year, from clinics on Boyer Avenue East in Montlake and at Magnuson Park.

Early intervention and family support in King and Pierce counties

Washington’s early intervention program for children under three is Early Support for Infants and Toddlers, known as ESIT. In King County a parent can make the referral directly, without waiting for a doctor. The county’s Resource Access Team takes referrals at (206) 204-3536 and arranges the developmental evaluation that decides whether a child qualifies.

After age three the questions shift to school. PAVE (Partnerships for Action, Voices for Empowerment), based in Tacoma, runs Washington’s Parent Training and Information program for families of children and young adults from birth to 26, and its Pierce County Parent to Parent program matches parents with others who have been through the same diagnosis. Its line is 1-800-5-PARENT. North of Tacoma, The Arc of King County, based in SeaTac, runs a Parent to Parent program of its own alongside information and family support.

Seattle hospitals, NICU levels and where a case starts

Washington’s highest perinatal level for a birth hospital, Level 4, is held by two hospitals in Seattle, UW Medical Center Montlake and Swedish First Hill. The only other Level 4 birth hospital on the Health Care Authority’s 2024 delivery charts, which group every birth hospital by its Department of Health level, is Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane. Valley Medical Center in Renton, EvergreenHealth in Kirkland and Overlake in Bellevue are Level 3. Virginia Mason Medical Center and UW Medical Center Northwest, both in Seattle, are Level 2.

Seattle Children’s is a children’s hospital rather than a birth hospital, so it is not on that chart. Its NICU is Level IV, the top tier as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Department of Health define it. Its neonatologists also staff the newborn units at eight other hospitals, among them UW Medical Center in Seattle, UW Medical Center Northwest, Valley Medical Center, St. Anne in Burien, St. Francis in Federal Way and St. Joseph in Tacoma.

That arrangement shapes the records. A baby born at Valley Medical Center can be treated in the first hours by a Seattle Children’s neonatologist and then moved to Seattle Children’s itself. The labor chart, the fetal monitoring strips, the resuscitation notes and the transport record can end up with two or three organizations, and each has to be asked separately. The first step in reviewing a Seattle birth injury is a list of every hospital and physician group involved in the first 72 hours.

Tacoma and Pierce County

The newborn intensive care unit at MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital is Level IV. The Department of Health recognized it at that level in 2014 and, in an April 2019 certificate of need evaluation, approved its growth to 54 Level IV beds. Tacoma General sits beside Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital on Martin Luther King Jr Way, and physicians writing in support of that application called it the only Level IV NICU between Seattle and Portland.

St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma is a Level 3 birth hospital on the state’s 2024 chart, with Seattle Children’s neonatologists covering its newborn unit. MultiCare Good Samaritan in Puyallup is Level 2. When a Pierce County newborn needs a higher level of care, the transfer may go to Tacoma General or north to Seattle Children’s, and the destination decides which records exist and who holds them.

A claim over a Tacoma delivery is generally filed in Pierce County Superior Court, in the County-City Building at 930 Tacoma Avenue South. Washington’s venue statute, RCW 4.12.020, lets an injured person sue where the injury happened or where any defendant resides. A case that began in Tacoma and continued in a Seattle NICU can sometimes be brought in either county.

King County Superior Court and claims against UW Medicine

King County Superior Court divides its civil cases between the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle and the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. Under local rule LCR 82, a personal injury case is assigned to the area where the injury occurred. Seattle, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Issaquah and everything north of Interstate 90 belong to the Seattle area; most of the county south of I-90 belongs to Kent. A birth injury at Swedish First Hill or UW Medical Center Montlake stays in Seattle. One at Valley Medical Center in Renton is normally assigned to Kent.

Claims against UW Medicine start differently. UW Medical Center is part of a state university, and a malpractice claim against it, or against the UW Physicians group, has to begin with a standard tort claim form filed with the state Office of Risk Management. No lawsuit can be filed until 60 days after that, and the limitation period is paused for those 60 days (RCW 4.92.110). The university’s own claim form states that filing it with UW does not count as that filing. The Court of Appeals applied the rule to UW Physicians in Hyde v. State (2015).

Washington deadlines and damages for a Seattle claim

These rules are state law, the same in Seattle as in Spokane, and our Washington cerebral palsy lawyers page covers them statewide.

Your child’s own claim can be filed until the 21st birthday: RCW 4.16.190 stops the clock until 18, and Schroeder v. Weighall (2014) struck the 2006 law that withheld that pause in malpractice cases. Parents have three years from the care, or one year from when they learned or should have learned it caused the injury, whichever ends later (RCW 4.16.350). The eight year limit still printed in that statute fell in Bennett v. United States (2023). Pain and suffering awards have had no cap since Sofie v. Fibreboard (1989), and a share of fault reduces an award without barring it (RCW 4.22.005).

Choosing a Seattle cerebral palsy lawyer

A Seattle birth injury case often involves a delivering hospital, a transport team, a NICU and a physician group employed by none of them. The lawyer you choose should read fetal monitoring strips fluently, know when the 60 day state tort claim applies, and have the money to keep obstetric, neonatal and neuroradiology experts on the case through trial. Every Washington malpractice case goes to mandatory mediation before trial under RCW 7.70.100, so ask how many of the firm’s cases have gone past mediation to a verdict.

Cerebral Palsy Center pairs families with experienced local birth injury lawyers in Seattle and Tacoma and backs them with the financial resources of larger partner firms, so a case is not settled early because a small firm cannot afford to try it. The review is free. The lawyer advances the costs of the case and is repaid only from a recovery.

View all cerebral palsy lawyers in Washington