Opinion ID: 2615017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: supervening cause's adaptation to fit the claim for the child's wrongful death

Text: We do not redefine supervening cause by confining its use to tortious conduct that is willful. Rather, we adapt the concept, as we must, to make it fit this claim for a child's wrongful death. While the doctors cannot invoke the mother's negligence in defense of the death claim they are entitled to defend against it by showing that the mother willfully brought about conception in spite of what she knew to be the consequences and hence her acts were the sole efficient cause of the child's harm. Intertwined with supervening cause is here the mother's knowledge, if any she had, of her impaired reproductive capacity. If the jury should believe that she had been adequately warned of her sensitized condition and of its medical consequences, the jury might conclude that her intended conception in the face of a known danger was the independent adequate and unforeseeable force that constituted the supervening cause of harm. On the other hand, the triers might reach a different assessment if they should believe that, when she conceived, she was unaware or insufficiently informed of her reproductive disability.