Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

$14 million for wrongful birth

A New Brunswick jury awarded $14 million to the Sharad family against their obstetrician, who failed to test for a rare genetic blood disorder, thalassemia major (Cooley’s anemia), that their son was born with. Newspaper coverage mentions neither the doctor’s defense nor even the words “wrongful birth.” $8 million of the award is for emotional […]

A New Brunswick jury awarded $14 million to the Sharad family against their obstetrician, who failed to test for a rare genetic blood disorder, thalassemia major (Cooley’s anemia), that their son was born with. Newspaper coverage mentions neither the doctor’s defense nor even the words “wrongful birth.” $8 million of the award is for emotional distress, meaning the family will be millionaires even after attorneys’ fees and medical expenses. (Sue Epstein, “Couple gets millions for son’s blood disorder”, Star-Ledger, May 23). More on wrongful birth suits: Apr. 9, etc.

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3 Comments

  • I loved this line from the news story: “A jury in New Brunswick has awarded a North Brunswick couple $14 million to help them with the long-term care of their 5-year-old son.”

    No, the jury awarded $6mm to help with long-term care. The $8mm was to compensate the “family” for the misery it has suffered, and which it would have avoided had it aborted the unborn child. Even as someone who is generally pro-choice, that’s repulsive.

    • By Mike

  • Very repulsive.

    Compensation for long-term care issues I might could process/accept – IF the parents were not properly tested and counseled about “options” before the child was born. But for parents to say that their child’s very life is “painful” to them . . . to whine that they “suffer” and are in “misery” because their child was born . . . to claim that they deserve millions of dollars in “damages” for an act of God . . . that no doctor, short of ending the child’s life before it began, could prevent.

    Well, that’s just twisted and sick.

    Question. If the child succumbs to this illness while it is still young, does the family get to keep ALL the money?

  • “If the child succumbs to this illness while it is still young, does the family get to keep ALL the money?”

    Yes.

    The other thing about these suits, aside the general repulsiveness already mentioned, is th absolutely WONDERFUL feelings these suits must generate in the actual child.

    “I’m so terrible and hard to take care of that my parents deserve money for not aborting me.”

    Those parents are selfish, sick people.

    • By Deoxy