Jury Awards $108 Million in Lee’s Summit Woman’s Death After Home Birth
Jury Awards $108 Million in Lee’s Summit Woman’s Death After Home Birth - KansasCity.com
A Jackson County jury awarded $108.6 million Friday to the parents of a Lee’s Summit woman who died in 2007 of infection after enduring weeks of no medical care following the home birth of a stillborn daughter.
The parents alleged that members of a religious group botched the delivery of their daughter’s child, used unsterilized household scissors in an attempt to deliver the infant and then kept their daughter from receiving medical attention for a month.
The child, Sydney, died Dec. 6, 2006.
Misty Mansfield — the daughter of plaintiffs Gail and Darrell Mansfield of Kingsville, Mo. — died 31 days later.
Danny Thomas, who represented the Mansfields, said Misty Mansfield had been “vindicated” after the jury found the defendants, including brothers John and Caleb Horner, a former Lee’s Summit police officer, liable after deliberating for two hours in the Jackson County Courthouse.
In his closing arguments, Thomas described the defendants as cult leaders who had isolated and brainwashed their followers, including Misty Mansfield.
“Now the Horners and every other cult like them will get the message that they cannot hide behind the cross or religious freedom when they brainwash and manipulate,” Thomas said after the verdict was announced.