wrongful life
{{Short description|Civil law action which alleges that a defendant has wrongfully caused a child to be born}}
{{Distinguish|Life unworthy of life|Wrongful birth}}
{{Tort law}}
Wrongful life is the name given to a cause of action in which someone is sued by a severely disabled child (through the child's legal guardian) for failing to prevent the child's birth. Typically, a child and the child's parents will sue a doctor or a hospital for failing to provide information about the disability during the pregnancy, or a genetic disposition before the pregnancy. Had the mother been aware of this information, it is argued, she would have had an abortion, or chosen not to conceive at all.
The term "wrongful life" is also sometimes applied to what are more accurately described as wrongful living claims{{cite journal |last1=Peters Jr. |first1=Philip G. |title=The Illusion of Autonomy at the End of Life: Unconsented Life Support and the Wrongful Life Analogy |journal=UCLA Law Review |date=February 1998 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=673–731 |pmid=11660813 |url=https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1318&context=facpubs |access-date=7 March 2021}} alleging that doctors or hospitals failed to follow a patient's end-of-life directive (for example, a MOLST or POLST) and kept the patient alive longer than preferred, thereby causing unnecessary and unwanted suffering. {{ cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/health/elderly-dnr-death-lawsuit.html | title=Filing Suit for 'Wrongful Life' - More Americans are writing end-of-life instructions as the pandemic renders such decisions less abstract. But are medical providers listening? | last=Span | first=Paula | newspaper=The New York Times | date=2021-01-22 | quote=In an interview four years ago, Mr. Pope noted that nobody at that point had received compensation from any “wrongful life” suit. Since then, several plaintiffs have received hefty payments, and courts have weighed in as well.}} However, the confusion between the two is understandable and readily explained. Although wrongful life and wrongful living claims arise at opposite ends of the human lifespan, they are related in the sense that both types of claims seek the same relief: a judgment awarding monetary damages for "unwanted life."
History
Historically, only parents could sue for their own damages incurred as a result of the birth of a disabled child (e.g., the mother's own pregnancy medical bills and cost of psychiatric treatment for both parents' emotional distress resulting from the realization that their child was disabled). This cause of action is known as wrongful birth. But the child could not sue for his or her own damages, which were often much more substantial, in terms of the cost of round-the-clock personal care and special education.
In four U.S. states—California, Maine, New Jersey, and Washington—the child is allowed to bring a wrongful life cause of action for such damages.{{cite journal |last1=Fox |first1=Dov |title=Privatizing procreative liberty in the shadow of eugenics |journal=Journal of Law and the Biosciences |date=11 June 2018 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=355–374 |doi=10.1093/jlb/lsy011 |pmid=30191069 |pmc=6121041 |url=https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC6121041&blobtype=pdf |accessdate=12 September 2020|doi-access=free }} In a 1982 case involving hereditary deafness, the Supreme Court of California was the first state supreme court to endorse the child's right to sue for wrongful life, but in the same decision, limited the child's recovery to special damages.Turpin v. Sortini, [http://online.ceb.com/CalCases/C3/31C3d220.htm 31 Cal. 3d 220] (1982).{{cite web
| author=Mathew O. Jannol
| title =Wrongful Life and Pragmatic Justice in Light of Changing Societal Values: Turpin v. Sortini
| work =Tort Stories – Student Papers from 2003–04
| publisher =Steve Sugarman; UC Berkeley School of Law
| date =2004
| url = http://www.law.berkeley.edu/9428.htm
| format = doc
| url-status = dead
| accessdate = March 28, 2017
| archiveurl =https://web.archive.org/web/20150221090540/http://www.law.berkeley.edu/sugarman/Turpin7.doc
| archivedate = February 21, 2015}} This rule implies that the child can recover objectively provable economic damages, but cannot recover general damages like subjective "pain and suffering"—that is, monetary compensation for the entire experience of having a disabled life versus having a healthy mind and/or body.
The Supreme Court of California's 1982 decision, in turn, was based on the landmark California Court of Appeal decision in Curlender v. Bio-Science Laboratories (1980).Curlender v. Bio-Science Laboratories, [http://online.ceb.com/CalCases/CA3/106CA3d811.htm 106 Cal. App. 3d 811] (1980). The Curlender decision involved a child who was allegedly born with Tay–Sachs disease after the parents relied upon the defendants' representations about the reliability of their genetic tests in refraining from proceeding with amniocentesis.
The most famous passageDaniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 293.{{cite book |last1=Cowen |first1=Zelman |author1-link=Zelman Cowen |editor1-last=Tsakok |editor1-first=F.H.M. |editor2-last=Liauw |editor2-first=P. |editor3-last=Yu |editor3-first=S.L. |title=Proceedings Of The 1st International Scientific Meeting, Royal College Of Obstetricians And Gynaecologists |date=1992 |publisher=World Scientific Publishing |location=Singapore |isbn=9789814555654 |pages=112–126 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=huk7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA125 |access-date=23 July 2023 |chapter=Medical Responsibility in Obstetrics and Gynaecology}} (at p. 125.)Robert H. Blank, Fetal Protection in the Workplace: Women's Rights, Business Interests, and the Unborn (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 139.{{cite book |last1=Robison |first1=Shea K. |title=Epigenetics and Public Policy: The Tangled Web of Science and Politics |date=2018 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara |isbn=9781440844706 |page=284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wknEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA284 |accessdate=28 January 2019}} from the Curlender opinion is as follows:
{{quote|The circumstance that the birth and injury have come hand in hand has caused other courts to deal with the problem by barring recovery. The reality of the "wrongful-life" concept is that such a plaintiff both exists and suffers, due to the negligence of others. It is neither necessary nor just to retreat into meditation on the mysteries of life. We need not be concerned with the fact that had defendants not been negligent, the plaintiff might not have come into existence at all. The certainty of genetic impairment is no longer a mystery. In addition, a reverent appreciation of life compels recognition that plaintiff, however impaired she may be, has come into existence as a living person with certain rights.}}
Curlender was not the first appellate decision to authorize a cause of action for wrongful life—it noted that a 1977 decision of the intermediate appellate court of New York had taken the same position, and was promptly overruled by the highest court of that state a year later. However, Curlender stands as the first such appellate decision which was not later overruled.
Most other jurisdictions, including all U.S. states except California, Maine, New Jersey, and Washington; England and Wales;McKay v. Essex Area Health Authority [1982] 1 QB 1166. Ontario;Bovingdon v. Hergott, [http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2008/january/2008ONCA0002.htm 2008 ONCA 2], 290 D.L.R. (4th) 126. and Australia,{{cite AustLII|HCA|15|2006|litigants=Harriton v Stephens |parallelcite=(2006) 226 CLR 52 |courtname=auto}}.{{cite AustLII|HCA|16|2006|litigants=Waller v James |parallelcite=(2006) 226 CLR 136 |courtname=auto}}. have refused to allow the wrongful life cause of action.
In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court declared wrongful life claims unconstitutional. The court reasoned that such a claim implies that the life of a disabled person is less valuable than that of a non-disabled one. Therefore, claiming damages for one's life as such violates the human dignity principle codified in the first article of the German Basic Law.BVerfGE 88, 203 (296).
Nevertheless, the German Federal Court stuck to its previous practice of granting to suffered families indemnification in form of living expenses for a child.Vgl. BGH, NJW 1994, 788. It emphasized that damages referred to did not imply the existence of the child by itself but the economical obligation of parents to pay maintenance. It was finally upheld by the Constitutional Court in 1998, stating no matter what was the difference between existence of a child and parents' obligation to pay maintenance in terms of damage, because the recognition of a child as a person after Art. 1 I GG did not lay on the undertaking that obligation by parents.BVerfGE 96, 375, 400.
In 2005, the Dutch Supreme Court fully upheld a wrongful life claim in the Netherlands' first wrongful life case ever.{{cite journal|last=Buijsen |first=Martin |date=3 June 2005 |title=Wrongful life-vordering gehonoreerd |trans-title=Wrongful life claim honored |journal=Medisch Contact |volume=60 |issue=22 |pages=946–948 |location=Utrecht |publisher=Royal Dutch Medical Association |language=Dutch |format=PDF |issn=0025-8245 |accessdate=23 June 2013 |url=http://medischcontact.artsennet.nl/web/file?uuid=82e949f6-a96e-43bb-a424-78810a52ba46&owner=170633d1-1865-4910-ad53-77ff653599da |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140527215407/http://medischcontact.artsennet.nl/web/file?uuid=82e949f6-a96e-43bb-a424-78810a52ba46&owner=170633d1-1865-4910-ad53-77ff653599da |archivedate=27 May 2014 }}
Ethics
Since wrongful life suits are a relatively new application of human rights, doctors and scholars have not come to consensus regarding their place in medical ethics.{{cite journal|last1=Lane|first1=Richard|title=Avraham Steinberg: leading light in faith-based medical ethics|journal=The Lancet|date=7 Jul 2015|volume=386|issue=10005|page=1723|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61218-1|pmid=26159397|s2cid=33903773|url=http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)61218-1.pdf|accessdate=12 December 2017}}{{cite journal|last1=Gillon|first1=Raanan|title='Wrongful life' claims|journal=Journal of Medical Ethics|date=1998|volume=24|issue=6|pages=363–4|doi=10.1136/jme.24.6.363|pmid=9873973|pmc=479131|url=}} Others have objected to wrongful life claims on conceptual grounds, including the question of whether there exist rights and duties with regards to non-existent persons.{{cite journal|last1=Mũrĩithi|first1=Paul Mũtuanyingĩ|title=Does the rejection of wrongful life claims rely on a conceptual error?|journal=Journal of Medical Ethics|date=2011|volume=37|issue=7|pages=433–436|doi=10.1136/jme.2010.042051|pmid=21303794|s2cid=24063351|url=http://jme.bmj.com/content/37/7/433|accessdate=12 December 2017|url-access=subscription}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite journal |last=Appel |first=Jacob M. |pmid=15031969 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4100/is_200402/ai_n9393049/ |year=2004 |title=Physicians, 'wrongful life' and the Constitution |volume=87 |issue=2 |pages=55–8 |journal=Medicine and Health, Rhode Island}}
- Belsky, Alan J., Injury as a Matter of Law: Is This the Answer to the Wrongful Life Dilemma?, 22 U. Balt. L. Rev 185 (1993).
- {{cite journal |pmid=11665224 |year=1980 |last1=Foutz |first1=TK |title='Wrongful life': The right not to be born |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=480–99 |journal=Tulane Law Review}}
- {{cite journal|last=Perry |first=Ronen | ssrn=977852|year=2008 |title=It's a Wonderful Life |volume=93 |pages=329–399 |journal=Cornell Law Review}}
[http://www.bormanviolins.com/SC/belsky.htm Belsky]
External links
- [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/02/1083436478926.html?from=storyrhs Sydney Morning Herald article from May 2004]
- [https://ssrn.com/abstract=977852 Article on wrongful life] in the Cornell Law Review.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrongful Life}}