Suffolk Jury Renders Huge Verdict Against Boston Children’s Hospital

The actual damage award will be less because of an agreement reached by the parties before the verdict. But legal specialists said the amount voted by the jury was unusually large for a medical malpractice case involving a death. Awards of that size are more common in cases in which a patient is severely injured as a result of malpractice and requires years of costly treatment, they said.

After deliberating four days, the Superior Court jury found that Dr. James Lock, until last year the physician in chief, and Dr. James A. DiNardo, an anesthesiologist, caused the death of Jason Fox, said the child’s father, Brian Fox, of suburban Philadelphia.

The boy died in December 2004, a year and a half after undergoing a procedure at the hospital for a birth defect.

Fox said he and his wife, Andrea, believe doctors lied about their actions when treating Jason.

“The only protection individuals have when you go up against powerful Harvard, top-ranked physicians is the jury system, and that worked,’’ said Fox in a phone interview.

Jason went into Children’s “a playful and active little boy,’’ he said. “When he came out of the hospital, he was flown by air ambulance to a neurological rehabilitation facility near where we lived.’’

But William J. Dailey Jr., the Boston lawyer for Lock and DiNardo and two other doctors who were found negligent but not responsible for the death, said he was stunned by the verdict.

He said Jason had undergone eight unsuccessful procedures before his parents took him to Children’s in a desperate effort to save his life.

“He had as severe an underlying congenital heart disease as you could have,’’ Dailey said. “If something could have been done in Boston, it would have been extraordinary.’’

In an e-mail to Children’s staff about the verdict, Dr. James Mandell, chief executive of the hospital, wrote: “We are surprised and disappointed in this finding. We are confident that our clinicians provided outstanding care to this very sick child.’’

Michelle Davis, a hospital spokeswoman, said that the doctors will not appeal and that Lock’s stepping down as physician in chief was unrelated to the case.

“There is no doubt that he is an extremely important leader and continues to be an extremely important leader at Children’s Hospital Boston,’’ she said. “We have no doubts about his ability or his leadership.’’

Jason was born in July 2001 with Tetralogy of Fallot, a complex but usually treatable birth defect that affects the flow of blood through the heart. In his case, the defect was particularly serious and prevented his blood from carrying enough oxygen to his organs and limbs.

Doctors in Philadelphia referred Jason to Lock, who pioneered the use of catheterization to repair cardiac birth defects. Lock agreed to try to widen more of the boy’s pulmonary arteries.