Posts Tagged ‘wrongful birth and wrongful life’

Medical roundup

Medical roundup

  • Hit by stray bullet, wakes from anesthesia fighting, hospital told to pay $17 million [Georgia; Insurance Journal]
  • Study: physician’s previous paid claims history has no impact on odds of catastrophic med-mal payout [Bixenstine et al, JHQ via PoL] Overall, med-mal payouts have fallen steadily in past decade; $3.6 billion figure last year follows strongly regionalized pattern with top per capita figures all in Northeast [Diederich analysis of annual payouts via TortsProf] Florida law now requires that testifying medical witness be in same specialty as defendant [Business Week]
  • In lawsuits alleging “wrongful birth,” what’s the measure of damages? [Gerard Magliocca, Concurring Opinions]
  • ObamaCare exchanges in D.C., California and Connecticut declare smoking “pre-existing condition,” say insurers can’t base higher rates on it [Kevin Williamson, NR]
  • “The Crime of Whitening Teeth with Over-the-Counter Products” [Caleb Brown, Bluegrass Institute]
  • How not to die: Jonathan Rauch on end-of-life overtreatment [The Atlantic]
  • “I’m going to start a rumor that Sudafed is an abortifacient. Then the feds will finally have to allow reasonable access to it.” [me on Twitter]

October 27 roundup

February 8 roundup

  • Cleverer approach NFL might have taken in “Who Dat” affair [Schwimmer, HuffPo, earlier here, here, etc.]
  • Justice Anthony Kennedy: influence of unionized prison guards in passing California’s three-strikes law “sick” [LA Times]
  • Federal prosecutors going after poster designer Shepard Fairey for untruth in civil lawsuit? How strange is that? [Kennerly]
  • Plaintiff in complaint against Mark Steyn before Canadian rights tribunal boasted of having “increase[d] the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material” [NRO “Corner”; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
  • Federal jury rejects wrongful birth suit against Elkton, Maryland obstetrician [Miller, more on wrongful birth]
  • Forced-reincarnation suit against Oprah Winfrey dismissed, George W. and Laura Bush off hook too [WV Record]
  • “How to Report the News”: funny plug-and-use TV reporting template [YouTube/Charlie Brooker, Newswipe, UK]
  • “Virginia Legislators Kill Bills to Mandate Child Support for Adult College Students” [Hans Bader/CEI “Open Market”, earlier here and here]

May 7 roundup

Sues over having twins

An Australian woman asked that her in vitro fertilization (IVF) result in a single baby but two embryos were mistakenly implanted. Now she wants $A400,000 for the cost of raising the child to adulthood. (“Mother sues doctor over twin birth”, ABC (Australian) News, Sept. 18)(via KevinMD). The local branch of the Australian Medical Association says the law should be changed to prevent damage claims over the birth of unimpaired babies: “We’re very concerned [at] the concept that a healthy life is wrongful.” (“Doctors should not be liable for mistake births: AMA”, Sept. 22). More on wrongful birth lawsuits here.

July 27 roundup

  • Grand jury declines to indict Dr. Anna Pou in Katrina hospital deaths, despite heavy breathing from Louisiana AG Charles Foti and TV’s Nancy Grace [Times-Picayune, more; 2005 CNN transcript; Health Care Blog, GruntDoc, Vatul.net]

  • Protection from lawsuits for “John Doe” security informants is back in anti-terror legislation moving through Congress, despite back-door effort to eliminate it earlier [Fox News, Malkin; earlier] Addendum: but it’s in altered, much-weakened form, says commenter Bob Smith;

  • U.K.: Top law firm Freshfields earns millions advising clients on employment compliance, yet “omitted to check that changes to its own pension scheme were legal” [Times Online]

  • Thinking of doing some guestblogging, for us or another site? Some good advice here [Darren Rowse via Kevin O’Keefe]

  • Even Conrad Black can have trouble affording lawyers, at least with feds freezing his accounts [PoL on Steyn]

  • Shouldn’t have let us become parents again: Florida jury awards $21 million in “wrongful birth” case [Fox News]

  • Possibility of gigantic reparations claims adds intensity to big lobbying fight in Washington over whether Turkey’s slaughter of Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide [Crowley, New Republic]

  • Updating colorful coverage case (Jun. 22, 2005): dentist wins $750K verdict on insurer’s duty to defend him for taking gag photos of sedated employee with boar tusks in mouth [Seattle Times, more; dissent in PDF; Althouse]

  • Giuliani might use federalism to defuse culture wars [Brownstein, L.A. Times; disclaimer]

  • Virginia’s enactment of harsh traffic fines (Jul. 6) follows tryouts of the idea in Michigan and New Jersey, where effects included rise in unlicensed driving [Washington Post]

“Wrongful birth” in Boston

We’ve covered a number of cases over the years in which parents sue physicians and others over the “wrongful birth” of perfectly healthy children, demanding, as part of the claimed damages, the cost of raising the youngsters to adulthood: May 9, 2000 (Phoenix), Jun. 8, 2000 (Revere, Mass., outside Boston), Apr. 9, 2006 (Scotland), and Nov. 1, 2006 (Germany). Many such cases arise from failed sterilizations or other efforts at birth control, but a new suit by Jennifer Raper of Boston against Planned Parenthood and two doctors claims that an abortion went awry. “The [Massachusetts] high court ruled in 1990 that parents can sue physicians for child-rearing expenses, but limited those claims to cases in which children require extraordinary expenses because of medical problems, medical malpractice lawyer Andrew C. Meyer Jr. said. Raper’s suit has no mentions of medical problems involving her now 2-year-old daughter.” (“Boston woman sues for child-rearing costs after failed abortion”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 7; Jonathan Saltzman, “Suit seeks compensation for botched abortion”, Boston Globe, Mar. 7). More: “One day Jennifer Raper’s daughter will punch her mother’s name into Google and discover that she was the result of ‘a failed abortion.'” (Taranto)