Court Opinion

ID: 9567934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:59:08.651055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:23:16.422487
License: Public Domain

Smith, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
This cause of action that the majority denominates a “wrongful birth” should not be distinguished from other medical malpractice actions. See the dissent in Fulton-DeKalb Hosp. Auth. v. Graves, 252 Ga. 441 (314 SE2d 653) (1984). As the Graves majority stated “[s]uch an action is no more than a species of malpractice which allows recovery from a tortfeasor in the presence of an injury caused by intentional or negligent conduct.” Id. at 443. The labels being attached here are misleading; there is either medical malpractice as defined by Georgia law or there is not.
The plaintiffs alleged that the doctors “breached the applicable standard of care by failing to provide advice concerning the increased risks of genetic abnormalities associated with higher maternal age, and by failing to have performed an amniocentesis so as to detect whether the unborn child had Down’s Syndrome.” The plaintiffs further asserted that if the test had been performed, they would have elected to terminate the pregnancy rather than carry the Down’s Syndrome child to term.
The majority has, by looking to the law of other jurisdictions, changed Georgia law. Under our law, a medical malpractice action includes a claim for damages resulting from the injury to any person arising out of an improper diagnosis. OCGA § 9-3-70 (1). The plaintiffs’ allegation that the doctor failed to perform the test was an assertion that the doctor failed to diagnose the child’s impairment in time for the parents to make an informed choice as to whether the mother would elect to terminate the pregnancy.
This case must be analyzed in terms of traditional Georgia tort law. OCGA § 51-1-27 provides:
A person professing to practice surgery or the administering of medicine for compensation must bring to the exercise of his profession a reasonable degree of care and skill. Any injury resulting from a want of such care and skill shall be a *720tort for which a recovery may be had.
Georgia law controls this case, not the Colorado law cited by the majority. Georgia law provides:
[TJhere are three essential elements [in a medical malpractice claim]: (1) the duty inherent in the doctor-patient relationship; (2) the breach of that duty by failing to exercise the requisite degree of skill and care; and (3) that this failure be the proximate cause of the injury sustained.
Hawkins v. Greenberg, 166 Ga. App. 574, 575 (304 SE2d 922) (1983). Thus the plaintiff must prove: 1) there was a doctor-patient relationship; 2) that the doctor failed to exercise the requisite degree of skill and care, and 3) that the doctor’s failure was the proximate cause of the injury sustained. The measure of the requisite skill and care is determined by comparing the skill and care provided with that required of physicians under similar circumstances as ordinarily employed by the profession in general. See Ga. Law of Torts § 5-2 and cases cited therein. I agree with Justice Hunt’s dissent in that the injury in this case, just as in Graves, is the “birth of the unwanted child.” Why are these plaintiffs and others similarly situated barred from asserting a claim when the Graves’ plaintiffs were not so barred? The injury is the same.
The majority would keep this issue from a jury because the “impairment [was] inherited from her parents and an impairment which was already in existence when the parents first came into contact with the physician.” If a patient comes to the doctor with an inflamed appendix, or gall or kidney stones, and the doctor fails to properly diagnose the condition, we do not absolve the doctor of all future damages because the condition was genetic and because it was in existence when the patient walked into the office. That would be absurd. With a proper diagnosis no injury would have occurred. Thus, the correct analysis of this case centers around the contention that because of an improper diagnosis an injury occurred. In light of this, these plaintiffs should not be turned away at the courthouse door but rather should be allowed to attempt to prove their injury just as any other.
If we can look at pregnancy without the emotionalism that arises when termination of pregnancy is discussed, we can see that pregnancy is a medical condition and one which, at this point in the law, a woman has a right to terminate whether her child will be normal or abnormal. Because she has a right to plan her family and terminate her pregnancy she also has the right to be informed of her risk of bearing an impaired child, an opportunity to decline to take an amniocentesis if she is in the category of women who are at risk, and, if she *721elects to take the test, she has the right to a proper diagnosis of the results of the test so that she can make an informed choice about her family planning.
The majority opinion bars even women who are in the highest risk category from asserting a claim of improper diagnosis against her physician. The issue is whether in a particular case the physician committed malpractice in failing to diagnose an abnormal fetus in time to allow the woman to elect between completing or terminating the pregnancy. Because this is, of necessity, a fact sensitive issue, it should be presented to and determined by a jury. It is totally unnecessary to foreclose this plaintiff and all future plaintiffs from any opportunity whatsoever to bring the facts before a jury.
Assessing damages is not so very difficult. If a woman was carrying a healthy fetus and because of failure to diagnose a problem at delivery the child was born impaired, we would have no problem assessing damages. More importantly we would not even consider the theory that the joy of parenthood should offset the damages. Would anyone in their right mind suggest that where a healthy fetus is injured during delivery the joy of parenthood should offset the damages? There is no more joy in an abnormal fetus come to full term than a normal fetus permanently injured at delivery. Both are heartbreaking conditions that demand far more psychological and financial resources than those blessed with normal children can imagine.10
As for damages, I would follow our holding in Graves and in addition I would allow the cost of rearing and upkeep of the child for life, subject to reduction for the child’s ability to contribute to its upkeep upon reaching majority. This additional award includes but is not limited to special costs for education and training in connection with the child’s impairment. As to the appellees’ claim for damages for their own mental pain and suffering I would follow my special concurrence in Ob-Gyn Assoc. v. Littleton, 259 Ga. 663 (386 SE2d 146) (1989). “I agree with the ‘handful of courts’ that allow a cause of action to recover for serious emotional distress without regard to whether plaintiff suffered any physical injury or physical illness.” Id. at 670.

 There are times when normal children are not a joy. But those temporary discomforts pale in comparison to the pain one must suffer when you will never see your child engage in normal activities, when your child is stared at in malls and grocery stores, when your child is picked on and taunted because he or she is different. The pain is different for the child also, who will not know the joy of their first prom, or graduation, or a wedding day. And compounding that pain is the fear in the hearts of the parents who know that when they die, their child will be left in some institution and will never know the joys of intimacy with another person.