If the hospital has no reasonable explanation to account for what happened to the fetal monitoring strips, and there is no other way to show evidence of distress during the course of labor, your attorney can ask the Court to dismiss the hospital's answer to your allegations of wrongdoing. This means that, if granted, you would win your case by default. The only issue would then be to determine the value of your child's injuries. A recent Second Department case called Baglio v. St. John's Queens Hospital held that where the hospital could not account for the fetal strips- and they had an absolute obligation to maintain them for many years- then judgment would be granted for the injured victim. Without these crucial documents, the injured victim had no way to conclusively prove that there was, or was not wrongdoing that caused the baby's injuries.