Opinion ID: 2615017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: adequacy of the mother's conduct to bring about the child's wrongful death was a question of fact

Text: A remote cause which merely furnishes the occasion for an injury which results from an intervening efficient cause cannot be the predicate for liability, even though the injury would not have happened but for the earlier incident. [45] It is when the first occasion results in injury which might have been anticipated or which rendered the avoidance of injury impossible that it will be the proximate cause in spite of an intervening agency. [46] Hence whether the mother's conduct was adequate of itself to bring about Donald's injury and death cannot be measured by applying a simple but for the doctors' negligence test. [47] The adequacy-of-conduct factor of the three-prong test for gauging supervening cause must take into account both the nature of the risk [48] and the character of the intervening cause. [49] If, after her sensitization, the mother intentionally became pregnant with full knowledge of the consequences, her risk-taking conduct would not be prudent; rather, she would be viewed as exposing herself imprudently to a known and appreciated risk, which she need not have taken. Once she had become sensitized, her underlying physical condition was irreversible and unalterable. The only action the doctors could have taken to ward off the harm that later occurred was to warn the mother of the consequences of her sensitization; they had no control over whether she would become pregnant again. In short, if she (1) knew that her reproductive capacity was impaired, (2) had been given adequate warnings about the dangers of conceiving in her sensitized condition and (3) completely understood the medical risk to herself and to her child if she conceived in a sensitized condition, the forces set in motion by the doctors failure to give her Rho-GAM may be said to have become passive  i.e., they would not be harmful to the mother unless she intervened to bring about the harmful result. [50] If she undertook unreasonable risks by becoming pregnant in her sensitized condition, the harm for which she is suing is not attributable to the doctors, but to the normal risks of pregnancy for a woman who has been sensitized. All three supervening-cause elements are inextricably intertwined with whether the mother engaged in sexual conduct intended to bring about conception with full knowledge of the consequences; they cannot be considered in isolation. Some of the evidence mentioned in connection with foreseeability is equally pertinent to whether the mother's conduct was itself adequate to bring about the result. [51] Considering the intentional nature of the conduct with which the mother is charged and the extreme risk she is alleged to have taken, the triers might find that at some point in the causal chain the moral culpability of the original negligent actors may have been transmuted into a remote cause. In short, whether (a) the mother's sexual conduct was intended to bring about conception, (b) was carried on in the face of fully understood prior medical warning and (c) was hence adequate of itself to bring about the result was for the jury to decide. In sum, ample evidence supports the correctness of giving a supervening cause instruction. Factual disputes govern all the critical components for deciding whether the mother's conduct in bringing about conception is a supervening cause that resulted in Donald's injury and death.