Case ID: me_117/html/0143-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Philbrook, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Carrie Lembo vs. Charles K. Donnell.
    Androscoggin.
    Opinion March 11, 1918.
    
      Buie as to right to recover damages where party claiming the damages consented and was a voluntary party to the illegal act.
    
    Consent by one person to allow another to perform an unlawful act upon such person does not constitute a defense to an action to recover the actual damages which such person thereby received.
    Action on the case to recover damages for alleged malpractice in performing an illegal operation upon plaintiff and for negligent treatment thereafter. Defendant filed general demurrer, in which plaintiff joined. Presiding Justice overruled demurrer; to which ruling defendant filed exceptions.
    Exceptions overruled.
    Case stated in opinion.
    
      Newell & Woodside, for plaintiff.
    
      Tascus Atwood, for defendant.
    Sitting: Cornish, C. J., Spear, Hanson, Philbrook, JJ.
   Philbrook, J.

This is an action on the case brought to recover damages against the defendant, a physician, for malpractice while performing an operation to procure an abortion on the plaintiff, and for unskilled treatment subsequent to the operation. The defendant filed a general demurrer which was overruled and the case comes to us upon exceptions to that ruling.

The basis of defendant’s exceptions lies in his position that as the plaintiff consented to the operation she cannot recover because the operation is an illegal one.

In a similar case, Miller v. Bayer, 94 Wis., 123; 68 N. W., 869, the court said: “It is further contended that plaintiff cannot recover, because she submitted to the operation performed upon her. Such is not the law. Consent by one person to allow another to perform an unlawful act upon such person does not constitute a defense to an action to recover the actual damages which such person thereby received;” citing 2 Greenleaf Ev., Sec. 85; Shay v. Thompson, 59 Wis., 540, 18 N. W., 473; Fitzgerald v. Calvin, 110 Mass., 153; Adams v. Waggoner, 33 Ind., 531; Com. v. Colberg, 119 Mass., 350; Grotton v. Glidden, 84 Maine, 589.

We agree that this statement of the law is correct.

Exceptions overruled.