It was the nightmare every expectant mother fears – a childbirth resulting in permanent brain injury to her baby.

Frances LeBron, the mother of Abigaile, faced that reality in 2005. She became party to a civil lawsuit against Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park and other defendants.

Now, Abigaile, 3, and the events surrounding her birth have become part of a state and national debate focused on an overturned Illinois law that capped damages in malpractice suits.

The LeBron case, consolidated with two other civil lawsuits, challenged a law signed in 2005 by Gov. Rod Blagojevich that capped damages for medical malpractice suits.

In an opinion issued Nov. 13, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane J. Larsen overturned the tort law on the grounds that the measure violated the Illinois Constitution.

The law had capped medical torts for “noneconomic damages” at $500,000 for doctors and $1 million for hospitals. These are the damages associated with pain and suffering. The law allowed unlimited compensation to cover hospital bills, lost wages and other quantifiable damages.

The Gottlieb legal team appealed Larsen's decision to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Briefs will be filed next month in the appeal by “everyone and their grandmother,” according to Danny Chun, spokesman for the Illinois Hospital Association. The IHA will be among those filing briefs on behalf of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, Chun said.

"All the arguments made before Larsen will be made in the appeal,” Gottlieb Hospital attorney Kenneth Skertich said. “All of the elements of the law will be argued.”

LeBron family attorney Jeffrey Goldberg said he would file briefs in response . “The hospital and doctors were negligent,” he said.

The Illinois Supreme Court could hear the case as early as late spring, according to Chun and other sources.

Illinois is a target for advocates of tort caps. The American Tort Reform Association ranked Cook County as the number 3 “judicial hellhole” in 2007, topped only by “unfair jurisdictions” in South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley and Gulf Coast, Texas.

ATRA Director of Communications Darren McKinney said the existing capless Illinois tort law fosters a “lottery mentality” among personal injury lawyers.

“Unlimited noneconomic damages attract the personal injury bar and motivate the personal injury bar to bring meritless cases," McKinney said.

The plan of attack for tort cap advocates squares with practical realities expressed by Chun. “You’re never going to see a tort reform bill get through Congress,” he said. Without action at the federal level, tort cap advocates are looking to cap judgments with state laws.

“There likely won’t be a lot of movement at the federal level, at least not at the 110^th Congress,” McKinney said.

But medical liability limits are either proposed or enacted in all 50 states.