Opinion ID: 2615017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: fatal infirmities of the challenged supervening cause instruction

Text: The supervening cause instruction not only withheld foreseeability from the jury's consideration, but also told the triers, in essence, that if the mother elected to become pregnant with full knowledge that she had been sensitized and full appreciation of the risks and danger of later pregnancies, the doctors' negligence was not a direct cause of the child's death. [52] Because tortious conduct is divisible into at least three groupings: negligence, gross negligence, and willful negligence, the phrase elected to become pregnant  deceptive in its simplicity  is clearly ambiguous. Does it mean: (1) willful disregard for her own safety and that of the child, (2) sexual conduct intended to bring about pregnancy in the face of a known danger, (3) not using safe contraceptives, (4) using inadequate precautions, (5) not aborting the fetus, (6) not using prescribed methods of contraception or (7) something else entirely? The instruction's simplicity is deceptive and misleading. The jury might believe that if a woman in the mother's position became pregnant, she would be the sole cause of the harm. In short, the instruction gives the jury the false impression that the mere act of conceiving and nothing more would be enough to constitute a supervening cause. Rather, it is the sexual conduct intended to bring about conception in the face of known danger to oneself and to one's child  or the reckless disregard of that danger  that would form the supervening cause. To rule out the possibility that the jury might have misunderstood supervening cause and confused it with a parent's contributory negligence, the jury should have been carefully instructed on the difference between a parent's ordinary negligence, which could not be a supervening cause and her willful act, which might, in some instances, cut off the doctors' liability. [53] The predictable failure of birth control methods could lead to a pregnancy that would not be a supervening cause. As we have explained in connection with our discussion of foreseeability, the mother's act of conceiving, however willful, would not insulate the physicians from liability in all situations. [54] The challenged instruction did not tell the jury what kind of behavior on the mother's part would shield the doctors from liability nor did it require the jury to find that the mother was guilty of that kind of conduct. [55]