Title: Bruggeman v. Schimke
Citation: 239 Kan. 245, 718 P.2d 635
Docket Number: 58,565
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: May 2, 1986

239 Kan. 245 (1986)
718 P.2d 635
ANDREW JOHN BRUGGEMAN, a minor by and through his natural mother and next friend, GINA MARIE BRUGGEMAN, Appellant,
v.
ROBERT NEIL SCHIMKE, M.D., STATE OF KANSAS, STATE BOARD OF REGENTS and UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER, Appellees.
No. 58,565

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 2, 1986.
Michael E. Callen, of Callen, Sexton &amp; Shelor, of Kansas City, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellant.
Carol R. Gilham, of Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary and Lombardi, of Kansas City, Missouri, argued the cause, and Thomas W. Wagstaff, of the same firm, of Kansas City, Missouri, and Michaela N. Nicolarsen, of the same firm, of Overland Park, were with her on the brief for appellee Robert Neil Schimke, M.D.
Mary Beth Blake, of Holbrook and Ellis, P.A., of Kansas City, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellees State of Kansas, State Board of Regents and University of Kansas Medical Center.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
MILLER, J.:
This is an action for damages for "wrongful life," brought by a three-year-old boy against a physician, Robert Neil Schimke; the State of Kansas; the State Board of Regents; and the Kansas University Medical Center. The plaintiff, Andrew John Bruggeman, appeals from an order of the district court of Wyandotte County sustaining defendants' motions to dismiss for failure *246 to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Kansas law, K.S.A. 60-212(b)(6).
The record in this case consists of the petition, the answers of the defendants, the motions to dismiss, and the court's ruling thereon. There has been no discovery and there is nothing to indicate that any factual matters outside the pleadings were presented to or considered by the trial court.
The petition, in substance, alleges that in 1979 plaintiff's mother gave birth to a daughter, Amy, who was born with multiple congenital anomalies. Plaintiff's mother and father then sought genetic counseling at the University of Kansas Medical Center in regard to the risk of birth defects or hereditable impairments in future children. They were advised by the defendants that Amy's condition was not due to a known chromosomal or measurable biochemical disorder. Defendants were negligent in so advising plaintiff's parents. The parents relied upon the advice and, but for the inadequate and negligent counseling, plaintiff would not have been born to experience the pain and suffering attributable to his genetic deformities. Plaintiff claims that as a result of defendants' negligence plaintiff has been caused to suffer, and will suffer in the future, injuries, pain and mental anguish as a result of being born as an impaired person, and that he has incurred and will incur in the future extraordinary expenses for medical, surgical, nursing and hospital services.
The trial court, in a comprehensive memorandum, reviewed cases from other jurisdictions and current articles in legal and medical journals on the subject. There is no Kansas case directly in point. The court concluded that a geneticist who has been consulted on the question of possible hereditary or congenital defects occurring in a second child owes a duty to his patients, which duty extends to yet unborn children of the patients, to exercise reasonable care. Whether the duty exists, the court held, was a question of law which the court decided in the affirmative. Whether the defendants had breached that duty was a question of fact, but for the purpose of ruling upon the motion the court held the allegations of the petition were sufficient. On the issue of causation, however, the court observed that the infant plaintiff does not claim that the defendants caused his defects. His claim is that they caused his birth and his life, when they knew or *247 should have known that he would be born with congenital defects. The court said:
Our scope of review, where the trial court has sustained a motion to dismiss, is concisely defined in Knight v. Neodesha Police Dept., 5 Kan. App.2d 472, 620 P.2d 837 (1980):
See also Weil &amp; Associates v. Urban Renewal Agency, 206 Kan. 405, 413-14, 479 P.2d 875 (1971).
The court also stated in Knight:
We turn now to the issue before us, whether an action for damages for "wrongful life" should be recognized in Kansas. There are three causes of action which should first be defined and distinguished. These are "wrongful pregnancy," "wrongful birth," and "wrongful life." These are discussed and distinguished in the recent Colorado Court of Appeals case, Continental Cas. Co. v. Empire Cas. Co., 713 P.2d 384 (Colo. App. 1985), where the court says:
Our recent case of Byrd v. Wesley Med. Center, 237 Kan. 215, 699 P.2d 459 (1985), was an action by the mother of a normal, healthy child alleging that her tubal ligation surgery performed at the Wesley Medical Center was negligently done. She later became pregnant and delivered a normal, healthy child. She sought damages, including the cost of rearing her child to majority. *249 We held that under the public policy of this state a parent cannot be said to be damaged by the birth of a normal, healthy child and, thus, the plaintiff could not recover damages because of the birth of such a child. We affirmed the district court's ruling denying recovery for the projected costs of rearing the unplanned child. The Byrd case fits into the definition of an action for "wrongful pregnancy."
The case now before us fits neatly within the definition of an action for "wrongful life." It is an action by the child alleging that, but for the negligence of the defendants in giving improper genetic counseling to his parents, he would not have been born to experience the pain and suffering attributable to his genetic deformities. His description of his claim parallels the definition of a wrongful life action set forth in the Continental Cas. Co. opinion and in the Tulane Law Review article quoted therein. The issue presented is one of first impression for this court.
The majority of American jurisdictions have refused to recognize an action for wrongful life. See Phillips v. United States, 508 F. Supp. 537 (D.S.C. 1980); Gildiner v. Thomas Jefferson Univ. Hospital, 451 F. Supp. 692 (E.D. Pa. 1978); Smith v. United States, 392 F. Supp. 654 (N.D. Ohio [applying Texas law] 1975); Elliott v. Brown, 361 So. 2d 546 (Ala. 1978); DiNatale v. Lieberman, 409 So. 2d 512 (Fla. Dist. App. 1982); Moores v. Lucas, 405 So. 2d 1022 (Fla. Dist. App. 1981); Blake v. Cruz, 108 Idaho 253, 698 P.2d 315 (1984); Goldberg v. Ruskin, 128 Ill. App.3d 1029, 471 N.E.2d 530 (1984); Strohmaier v. Ob and Gyn Assoc, 122 Mich. App. 116, 332 N.W.2d 432 (1982), appeal denied 417 Mich. 1072 (1983); Azzolino v. Dingfelder, 315 N.C. 103, 337 S.E.2d 528 (1985); Gleitman v. Cosgrove, 49 N.J. 22, 227 A.2d 689 (1967); Alquijay v. St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hosp. Center, 63 N.Y.2d 978, 483 N.Y.S.2d 994, 473 N.E.2d 244 (1984); Becker v. Schwartz, 46 N.Y.2d 401, 413 N.Y.S.2d 895, 386 N.E.2d 807 (1978); Stewart v. Long Is. Coll. Hosp., 35 App. Div.2d 531, 313 N.Y.S.2d 502 (1970), aff'd 30 N.Y.2d 695, 332 N.Y.S.2d 640 (1972); Rubin by Rubin v. Hamot Medical Center, 329 Pa. Super. 439, 478 A.2d 869 (1984); James G. v. Caserta, ___ W. Va. ___, 332 S.E.2d 872 (1985); Dumer v. St. Michael's Hospital, 69 Wis.2d 766, 233 N.W.2d 372 (1975); Annot., 83 A.L.R.3d 15 (and 1985 Supp.)
The courts which follow the majority rule, and which have *250 refused to recognize an action for wrongful life, have generally been reluctant to find that the child plaintiff has suffered a legally cognizable injury by being born impaired rather than not being born at all. The Idaho court in Blake v. Cruz, 108 Idaho 253, noted that the majority of states have refused to recognize the wrongful life action. The court then stated:
The Supreme Court of Alabama, in Elliott v. Brown, 361 So. 2d 546, expressed its rationale as follows:
....
The Court of Appeals of New York, in Becker v. Schwartz, 46 N.Y.2d 401, said:
Finally, in the most recent opinion on the subject, the North Carolina Supreme Court in Azzolino v. Dingfelder, 315 N.C. at 109, made this concise declaration:
A second reason relied upon by those courts refusing to recognize a cause of action for wrongful life is the difficulty in measuring damages. In Nelson v. Krusen, 678 S.W.2d 918, 924 (Tex. 1984), the Supreme Court of Texas said:
In the Becker case, the Court of Appeals of New York, at 46 N.Y.2d  at 411-12, said:
*252 Similarly, in Goldberg v. Ruskin, 128 Ill. App.3d at 1035-36, the Illinois Court of Appeals stated:
Four states have recognized an action for wrongful life. See Turpin v. Sortini, 31 Cal. 3d 220, 182 Cal. Rptr. 337, 643 P.2d 954 (1982); Continental Cas. Co. v. Empire Cas. Co., 713 P.2d 384 (Colo. App. 1985); Procanik by Procanik v. Cillo, 97 N.J. 339, 478 A.2d 755 (1984); Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc., 98 Wash. 2d 460, 656 P.2d 483 (1983). The most recent of those rulings, Continental Cas. Co., is not yet final, certiorari having been granted by the Colorado Supreme Court on January 13, 1986.
The leading case recognizing an action for wrongful life is Turpin v. Sortini. There, in considering earlier cases from other states in which recovery had been denied, the California court said:
However, the court went on to say:
The Turpin court denied the child's claim for pain, suffering, or other general damages, giving as its reason (1) the inability to determine in a rational or reasonable fashion whether the plaintiff has suffered an injury in being born impaired rather than not *253 being born, and (2) it would be impossible to assess general damages in a fair, nonspeculative manner. These reasons, of course, closely resemble the two principal reasons upon which the majority of states have based their refusal to recognize an action for wrongful life.
The Turpin court reached a different conclusion, however, on the child's claim for the "`extraordinary expenses for specialized teaching, training and hearing equipment' that [the plaintiff] will incur during her lifetime because of her deafness." 31 Cal. 3d  at 237. The court also noted that in the corresponding "wrongful birth" actions, parents have been permitted to recover medical expenses incurred on behalf of the child, and the court concluded that it would be illogical to allow only the parents and not the child to recover for the costs of the child's medical care. 31 Cal. 3d  at 328.
The Washington court, in Harbeson, and the New Jersey court, in Procanik, follow generally the rationale expressed in Turpin. The fourth case is Continental Cas. Co. v. Empire Cas. Co., decided by the Colorado Court of Appeals in June 1985. That case was a declaratory judgment action to determine which insurance carriers had what coverage responsibilities for a jury verdict entered in an underlying medical malpractice action, Peek v. Lockwood. The citation of the Peek case is not given, and we do not know whether or not it is the subject of appellate review. In Continental Cas. Co., the appellate court ruled that an action for wrongful life is a proper claim for relief, and that the elements necessary to sustain a recovery for the tort of wrongful life were established. 713 P.2d  at 394. As we noted earlier, certiorari has been granted by the Colorado Supreme Court and its opinion has not yet been announced.
As we observed in Byrd, the birth of a normal and healthy child does not constitute a legal harm for which damages are recoverable. In the case now before us, treating the allegations of the petition as true, the child is neither normal nor healthy; he is an impaired person, born with genetic deformities. The question is, has plaintiff suffered a legally cognizable injury by being born impaired, rather than not being born at all?
Appellant argues that recognition of the cause of action for wrongful life is a growing trend among the states. This is simply not true. Since the Turpin decision came down in 1982, more *254 courts have joined the majority, disallowing recovery, than have recognized the action.
We are convinced that an action for wrongful life should not be judicially recognized in Kansas. It has long been a fundamental principle of our law that human life is precious. Whether the person is in perfect health, in ill health, or has or does not have impairments or disabilities, the person's life is valuable, precious, and worthy of protection. A legal right not to be born  to be dead, rather than to be alive with deformities  is a theory completely contradictory to our law. We agree with the Supreme Courts of Idaho, Alabama and North Carolina, and with the Court of Appeals of New York, whose opinions we have quoted above. Further discussion would merely prolong this opinion and add nothing of value to it.
Having determined that an action for wrongful life should not be recognized in this state, we need not determine the issue of whether a duty to the parents extends to unborn children, nor do we need to determine the issue of damages.
As Chief Justice Schroeder recently observed in the unanimous opinion of this court in Hoard v. Shawnee Mission Medical Center, 233 Kan. 267, 285, 662 P.2d 1214 (1983):
There being no recognized cause of action for wrongful life, there can be no recovery of damages based thereon. The trial court was correct in sustaining the motion to dismiss.
The judgment is affirmed.