Court Opinion

ID: 9788269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:34:28.216038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:45.500702
License: Public Domain

Judge CONNELLY
specially concurring.
I agree plaintiff has stated a valid claim for negligent failure to terminate her pregnancy. While the child's "existence ... does not constitute a legally cognizable injury," Lininger v. Eisenbaum, 764 P.2d 1202, 1210 (Colo.1988), plaintiff may seek recovery for injuries arising out of her own continued pregnancy and delivery. The majority concludes that as long as plaintiff is entitled to at least some relief, it is premature to decide whether she may also seek child-rearing expenses. But because a child's existence cannot constitute a legally cognizable injury, and because the normal costs of rearing a child are inextricably intertwined with that existence, I would hold now that plaintiff is not entitled to damages for raising her healthy child.
We must decide this case by "applying common law negligence principles," Lininger, 764 P.2d at 1208. To state a negligence claim, "a complaint must identify (1) a legal duty the defendant owes to the plaintiff, (2) the defendant's breach of that duty, and (3) an injury to the plaintiff that is (4) proximately caused by the defendant's breach." Id. at 1205 (citing W. Prosser & W. Keeton, The Law of Torts 164-65 (5th ed.1984)).
Defendant concedes the complaint adequately alleges breach of a duty to terminate plaintiff's pregnancy. The dispute involves whether this alleged breach proximately caused "a legally cognizable injury," id. at 1210.
Under "traditional tort principles," plaintiff may seek recovery for injuries "directly resulting from the negligently performed abortion, the continuing pregnancy, and the ensuing childbirth." Miller v. Johnson, 231 Va. 177, 343 S.E.2d 301, 305 (1986). Indeed, "only one state court of last resort [Nevada] has declined to recognize [such] a cause of action in tort." Emerson v. Magendantz, 689 A.2d 409, 411 (R.I.1997) (citing Szekeres v. Robinson, 102 Nev. 93, 715 P.2d 1076 (1986), as standing in lone conflict with "the overwhelming majority" of other jurisdictions). Judges who would preclude all tort recovery would do so not by applying traditional tort analysis, but by interposing their own religious views that birth of a healthy child supersedes any physical, economic, or emotional injuries caused by a pregnancy. See Miller, 343 S.E.2d at 308 n. * (Russell, J., dissenting) (quoting a biblical passage that " 'as soon as she delivereth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world' ").
Plaintiff's further request for child-rearing expenses, however, would be precluded in "the vast majority of jurisdictions." Chaffee v. Seslar, 786 N.E.2d 705, 708 & n. 2 (Ind.2003) (citing cases). The rationales for precluding such recovery are not always consistent, but the most straightforward one is this: "the birth of a normal, healthy child is not a legal wrong for which damages may be awarded." Johnston v. Elkins, 241 Kan. 407, 736 P.2d 935, 939 (1987); accord O'Toole v. Greenberg, 64 N.Y.2d 427, 488 N.Y.S.2d 143, 477 N.E.2d 445, 448 (1985) ("the birth of a healthy child, as but one consequence of de*916fendant's tortious conduct, does not constitute a harm cognizable at law").
While Lininger did not address the present type of case, see 764 P.2d at 1204 n. 3, its analysis is instructive. Lininger limited cognizable tort claims to those in which there was some injury other than the existence of life itself. It allowed parents to seek extraordinary expenses "occasioned by [a child's] blindness," id. at 1207-damages that can be measured by comparison between raising a blind child and a sighted one. The court did not allow the child to seek damages for his own life because "a person's existence, however handicapped it may be, does not constitute a legally cognizable injury relative to non-existence." Id. at 1210.
Here, the only basis for awarding child-rearing expenses would be to define plaintiff's injury as the existence of her healthy child. One court allowing such recovery, however, has reasoned the harm "is not the birth of the child" but "the invasion of the parents' interest in the financial security of their family." Lovelace Medical Center v. Mendez, 111 N.M. 336, 805 P.2d 603, 609 (1991). That semantic distinction is cireular: the reason parents' financial interests are affected is that the child was born and is living.
The majority here has not suggested plaintiff may seek damages for raising a healthy child, and I am confident Colorado courts ultimately will join most other courts in precluding such recovery. I would decide the issue now by holding plaintiffs legally cognizable injury stems from the continued pregnancy and delivery but not from the ultimate life of the child.