Shaken Baby Syndrome (3): Aisling Brady McCarthy: Massachusetts: Boston Globe reports that: "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.” ..."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 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