"The parents of a 1-year-old Cambridge girl who died in 2013
after a sudden catastrophic brain bleed filed a wrongful death Thursday
against the child’s nanny, five months after prosecutors dropped murder
charges against her. In the lawsuit filed in Middlesex County
Superior Court, the couple maintain that Aisling Brady McCarthy, who has
since returned to her native Ireland, is responsible for the death of
their first-born child, Rehma Sabir, due to her “negligent, malicious,
willful, wonton, reckless and/or grossly negligent acts.” The parents told the Globe that their main motivation in filing the
case is to ensure that the nanny does not make money off their child’s
death, through such ventures as book deals or movie contracts. The
couple, Sameer Sabir and Nada Siddiqui, said this lawsuit is their only
legal mechanism to accomplish this.........In a case that drew international attention, the charges against
McCarthy were dropped in late August after the medical examiner in the
case, citing additional medical evidence from the defense, changed the
cause of Rehma’s death from a homicide to “undetermined.” Murder was not
ruled out completely as a possible cause, but Middlesex County
prosecutors said the medical examiner’s new views made it unlikely they
could prove murder charges beyond a reasonable doubt. One of
McCarthy’s attorneys in the criminal case, Melinda Thompson, said
Thursday that the lawsuit is “shocking and disturbing” and that the
parents are “compounding the tragedy” of the girl’s death by filing this
lawsuit against their former nanny who is trying to rebuild her life in
Ireland. “To sue someone for money, for someone who is literally trying to get back on her feet, it’s shocking,” said Thompson. Thompson reiterated the defense view that medical evidence showed
Rehma may have had pre-existing medical issues contributing to her
death, and that McCarthy is not responsible. Thompson described McCarthy
as being “exonerated” for the crimes.........The medical evidence in the case has been highly
contentious. The criminal prosecution fell apart at the end of late
August when the medical examiner, Dr. Katherine Lindstrom, who had
originally declared that Rehma died of abusive head trauma, said she was
no longer sure. She wrote last August about a new possibility that
Rehma had “some type of disorder that was not able to be completely
diagnosed prior to her death,” and she cites von Williebrand disease.
She also said the girl’s death could have been “related to an accidental
injury in a child with a bleeding risk or possibly could have been a
result of an undefined natural disease.” The lawsuit comes at a
time when shaken-baby syndrome has become an intense and
emotionally-charged national controversy. A number of cases have been
reversed, as defense lawyers, supported by some pathologists and medical
specialists, say shaken-baby syndrome is often mis-used against
innocent individuals. The medical establishment, meanwhile, has pushed
back, with the American Academy of Pediatrics speaking out loudly in
defense of this child-abuse diagnosis as highly valid when applied
appropriately. They say it’s a critical way to identify horrific child
abuse and ignoring it risks letting callous killers go free. The controversy has intensified in Massachusetts as well. About two
months ago, the state’s highest court heard two appeals involving
shaken-baby syndrome. The case involving McCarthy was the second time in
the past two years that the medical examiner’s office, having once
attributed a death to abusive head trauma, later revised their findings
to undetermined."
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/11/parents-sue-nanny-for-wrongful-death/sJKgFna4JxjDL72d6Px2NJ/story.html