Court Opinion

ID: 9547368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:46:30.75314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:40.087808
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting in Part II.
Putting aside the semantic phraseology which has unfortunately attached to discussion by scholars and jurists, I will briefly delineate my views pertinent to this particular case. The court is unanimously of the view that the parents of Dessie Blake are possessed of a cause of action against the defendant. Justice Bakes does not agree with the Court’s application of the statute of limitations. The cause of action in the parents which is upheld is based upon the claim for damages which will allegedly result in caring for a child who because of defendant’s negligence arrived in this world with handicapping defects.
It is inconceivable that the child herself is at the same time held to have no remedy whatever for her handicapped condition which allegedly would not have existed except for negligence. All that is necessary to place the child’s cause of action in perspective is to subtract the parents from the equation, and then by legal analysis pursue the problem to its logical conclusion.
The parents of a child, be it born a normal or abnormal child, are morally and lawfully obligated for its care. In the ordinary situation, such as here, the parents are entitled to damages some of which are the extra costs of caring for a handicapped child as against caring for the child if there were no handicaps. They are not entitled to any of the general damages which the child itself, an injured third party, has incurred by reason of her condition. It is beyond cavil that our society continues to recognize that all who have suffered permanent injury at the hands of another are entitled to compensation from the tortfeasor. This Court recently committed itself to the proposition that an unborn child is a person in being. For that very reason alone, where the unborn child is injured at the hands of a negligent tort-feasor, and dies from those injuries before leaving the mother’s womb, we held that the parents are possessed of a cause of action for the wrongful death of the unborn child. Volk v. Baldazo, 103 Idaho 570, 651 P.2d 11 (1982). In that case we recognized that “As a predicate to a wrongful death action for the death of a child, this Court has consistently required that the child would have been able to maintain an action for injury if death had not resulted.” Volk, supra, at 572, 651 P.2d at 13. After noting that the “The great majority of jurisdictions have permitted the cause of action on behalf of a child who sustained prenatal injuries and was subsequently born alive,” we quoted a passage from Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), and § 869 of the Restatement of Torts, and announced our holding:
“Based on what we deem to be the modern trend and the clear weight of authority, we hold that in Idaho a cause of action will lie on behalf of a viable child who sustains prenatal injuries, but is subsequently born alive.”
Volk, supra, at 572, 651 P.2d at 13.
The foregoing holding was integral and essential to our further holding in that case that Idaho law recognized a cause of action for the wrongful death of an unborn child, provided only that it have been a viable fetus. 103 Idaho at 574, 651 P.2d at 15. Under our holding of Volk, then, there is clearly a right in a child to recover damages for injury caused by third party negligence which occurred prior to the child’s birth. Although that holding was limited to the facts of that case, however, which included an indisputably viable full-term unborn baby, nevertheless, in relying upon the Restatement, § 869, “(1) One who tortiously causes harm to an unborn child is subject to liability to the child for the harm if the child is born alive,” we immediately added:
“The comment to subsection (1), states that liability:
*262‘is not limited to unborn children who are “viable” at the time of the original injury, that is, capable of independent life, if only in an incubator. If the tortious conduct and the legal causation of the harm can be satisfactorily established, there may be recovery for any injury occurring at any time after conception.’ ”
Volk, supra, at 572, 651 P.2d at 13.
Dessie’s cause of action is wholly independent of the action which the parents have brought. To comprehend this it is only necessary to conjure up a situation where a defective child is born to indigent parents who a few days later both perish in an automobile collision. The obligation of the parents to bear the expenses of caring for" their child is extinguished. At this point a guardian is appointed for the child, and through the guardian the child brings an action to recover damages against those persons or entities who are allegedly responsible in negligence for the defects with which the child was born, and with which the child will be burdened through life. Some of those damages will be the same damages which the parents would have sought, i.e., the increased costs and expenses of caring for a child born with defects. Where the parents are alive, however, the right to such damages also accrues to them, properly apportioned to the life expectancies of the parents and the life expectancy of the child. Obviously, a double recovery for those special damages cannot be imposed upon the alleged tort-feasor in favor of the parents and the child.
The child, however, who by reason of negligence has been afflicted with diminished hearing, diminished eyesight, and diminished speech, is also entitled to be compensated for those injuries just as any other human being is entitled to damages for such injuries. There is nothing new or remarkable in the concept of awarding to a handicapped child those damages which are caused by injuries attributable to third-party negligence.
Here, as the opinion for the Court points out, Dessie was born on July 3, 1975. Her mother saw the defendant professionally seven months earlier, concerned that she was then pregnant and had German measles. The defendant confirmed the pregnancy. At stake at that very instant the pregnancy was confirmed was the fate of Dessie, if her mother then did indeed have German measles. Beyond any doubt the defendant’s obligation was to the mother and as well to the conceived but unborn child. Despite the known or should-have-been-known consequences of his misdiagnosis, he did not, as the Court’s opinion points out, draw any blood in order to run rubella titer tests to confirm his diagnosis; nor did he tell her that it was important to have such tests done as soon as possible. Dessie was born, and Dessie lives. But the Dessie that lives is not a normal child, but a grievously injured child.
Although the parents’ action on their own behalf suggests that their claim for damages is predicated upon a contention that an abortion would have been procured had they been given a correct diagnosis, which in some eyes that might be seen as also suggesting a responsibility to so mitigate damages, (which I very much doubt) it is not readily seen just how they are required to after-the-fact speculate what they might or might not have done. The fact of the matter is that they do allege a misdiagnosis, and that Dessie was consequently born with serious defects which necessitate considerable expenditures of money which they seek to recover, both past and future.
For absolute certain, however, Dessie’s lawsuit does not in any way hinge on such speculation. The plaintiff Dessie was born, and has defects allegedly attributable to the failure to diagnose her mother's German measles. With Dessie’s case, we take the facts as they are. Although she might never have been born to live crippled, had her parents been properly informed, the fact is that she was born, and the condition in which she was born is allegedly chargeable to the defendant.
*263In Volk, we mentioned Bennett v. Hymers, 101 N.H. 483, 147 A.2d 108 (1958). That court said:
“[I]t seems to us that if an infant is born alive and survives bearing physical or mental injuries medically provable to have been incurred by it while en ventre sa mere it is being oblivious to reality to say that the mother alone was injured by the tortious act and not the child. This court in Prescott v. Robinson, 74 N.H. 460, 463, 69 A. 522, 524, 17 L.R.A.,N.S., 594, said that from ‘the time of the injury to the time of the birth the mother suffers no physical damage merely because the child’s limbs are distorted, or because its health is impaired * * * the child alone suffers damage on that account * * * the injuries suffered by each are distinct and independent.’ ”
Bennett, supra, 147 A.2d at 109-110 (emphasis added),
and
“In weighing the factors for and against allowing recovery we are impressed with the injustice of denying to a child born alive a right to recover for injuries which he might bear for the remainder of his life because of the tortious conduct of another. ‘One cannot examine the cases in which a child, physically or mentally deformed for life as a result of prenatal injuries caused by the wrongful act of another, has been denied a right of recovery for such injuries, without being impressed by the harshness of such a result. ’ Annotation 10 A.L.R.2d 1059, 1071.
“We hold therefore that an infant born alive can maintain an action to recover for prenatal injuries inflicted upon it by the tort of another even if it had not reached the state of a viable fetus at the time of injury. We so decide because we see no logical reason for not extending the protection of the law of torts to it and are impressed by the harshness of the opposite result. We recognize that there may be difficulty in proving causation and that such a holding may give rise to fictitious claims. However this difficulty and this danger are not peculiar to this type of action and do not appear to be so much greater than in the case of many other matters of medical opinion on the causal sequence of events. Our holding, that if a child born alive after an injury sustained at any period of its prenatal life can prove the damage was caused by the tort it makes out a right to recover, is in accord with certain recent judicial opinions, modern medical science and the view of many writers on the law of torts.”
Bennett, supra, at p. 110 (emphasis added).
A unanimous opinion from New York is of the same view:
“The complaint alleges that plaintiff was injured by the negligence of the defendant in operating an automobile which struck and knocked down plaintiff’s mother while she was walking over a crosswalk. She was then in the third month of her pregnancy. The result, so the complaint alleges, was that plaintiff was born" weakened and debilitated and otherwise physically handicapped. While the point at which the foetus becomes viable has been of usefulness in drawing some legal distinctions, the underlying problem that has usually troubled the judges who have written on the subject of recovery for pre-natal injuries, has been in fixing the point of legal separability from the mother.
“We ought to be safe in this respect in saying that legal separability should begin where there is biological separability. We know something more of the actual process of conception and foetal development now than when some of the common law cases were decided; and what we know makes it possible to demonstrate clearly that separability begins at conception.
“The mother’s biological contribution from conception on is nourishment and protection; but the foetus has become a separate organism and remains so throughout its life. That it may not live if its protection and nourishment are cut *264off earlier than the viable stage of its development is not to destroy its separability; it is rather to describe conditions under which life will not continue. Succeeding conditions exist, of course, that have that result at every stage of its life, post-natal as well as pre-natal. The complaint here, in alleging that plaintiff was in being in the third month of his mother’s pregnancy, alleges a conclusion of fact consistent with generally accepted knowledge of the process.
“The logic of some of the cases sustaining the right of recovery where the injury occurred after the foetus was viable seems to be that if at the instant of injury the foetus were outside the womb it could live and would then be treated at law as an individual in being. But no ease imposed as a necessity the concomitant condition that actual miscarriage must coincide with the injury. Hence the basis of separability discussed was often a theory rather than a fact.”
and
“If the child born after ah injury sustained at any period of his pre-natal life can prove the effect on him of the tort, as for the purpose of this appeal and on the face of the complaint before us we must assume plaintiff will be able to do, we hold he makes out a right to recover.”
Kelly v. Gregory, 282 A.D. 542, 125 N.Y. S.2d 696 (1953).
The Supreme Court of Georgia similarly ruled that “If a child born after an injury sustained at any period of its prenatal life can prove the effect on it of a tort, it would have a right to recover.” Hornbuckle v. Plantation Pipe Line Co., 212 Ga. 504, 93 S.E.2d 727. In Seattle-First National Bank v. Rankin, the Supreme Court of Washington, en banc, had before it a case where the minor plaintiff (through its guardian the bank) had prevailed in an action where it was alleged, inter alia, “that the plaintiff’s mother was suffering from a serious anemia during pregnancy and the defendant negligently failed to discover the condition and take proper steps to correct it....” Citing Bennett v. Hymers, supra, and other cases, the Washington court stated, “We have examined the cases in point, and conclude that the more just rule is that which permits a claim to recover for prenatal injuries.” 367 P.2d 835, 838 (1962).
In Sylvia v. Gobeille, 101 R.I. 76, 220 A.2d 222 (1966), the Supreme Court of Rhode Island overruled a long-standing case, which precluded liability for pre-natal injuries, saying that “We do this in part because we believe the law in this state should be harmonious with that which now prevails elsewhere.... We deem it fitting and proper to protect a child’s right to commence life unhampered and unimpaired by damage negligently caused to his body or mind by another.” 220 A.2d at 223. Also citing Bennett v. Hymers and other authority, that court went on to say:
“While we could, as has sometimes been done elsewhere, justify our rejection of the viability concept on the medical fact that a fetus becomes a living human being from the moment of conception, we do so not on the authority of the biologist but because we are unable logically to conclude that a claim for an injury inflicted prior to viability is any less meritorious than one sustained after. In our view, subject always, however, to Prosser’s caution, supra at 357, that there must be reliable proof of causation, ‘justice requires that the principle be recognized that a child has a legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body,’ and that ‘If the wrongful conduct of another interferes with that right, and it can be established by competent proof that there is a causal connection between the wrongful interference and the harm suffered by the child when born, damages for such harm should be recoverable by the child.’ (Italics ours.) Smith v. Brennan, 31 N.J. 353, 364, 157 A.2d 497, 503.
“With us the test will not be viability but causation, and our inquiry will be whether the damage sustained is traceable to the wrongful act of another. Our conclusion is in line with the recent deci*265sions. Sinkler v. Kneale, 401 Pa. 267, 164 A.2d 93; Kelly v. Gregory, 282 App. Div. (N.Y.) 542, 125 N.Y.S.2d 696; Horn-buckle v. Plantation Pipe Line Co., 212 Ga. 504, 93 S.E.2d 727; Bennett v. Hymers, 101 N.H. 483, 147 A.2d 108; Puhl v. Milwaukee Automobile Ins. Co., 8 Wis.2d 343, 99 N.W.2d 163; LaBlue v. Specker, 358 Mich. 558, 100 N.W.2d 445.
“Because the injured child in the instant case is in being, we do not reach the problem, more troublesome perhaps than that of viability, of whether a child must be born alive in order to maintain an action for injuries sustained while en ventre sa mere. We decide only the issue before us and we hold that a child born alive has a right of action in tort against a negligent wrongdoer for prenatal injuries.”
Sylvia, supra, at 223-24.
Six years earlier the Supreme Court of New Jersey, after a thorough review of then available authority, likewise overruled an earlier case where it had denied the right of a minor to sue for prenatal injuries. The entire opinion is recommended reading. I point only to a passage which illustrates that court’s turnabout:
“From the foregoing it is clear that medical authorities recognize that before birth an infant is a distinct entity, and that the law recognizes that rights which he will enjoy when born can be violated before his birth. If the law in cases of negligently inflicted prenatal injuries were to disregard this background and consider an unborn child as part of its mother, then the mother should be able to recover for the pain, suffering, and incapacity to this part of her, just as to any other part. We know of no ease allowing such recovery. As early as 1908, the New Hampshire Supreme Court specifically denied it, holding that ‘[sjuch damages pertain to the child alone. The mother is no more entitled to them than the father is.’ Prescott v. Robinson, 74 N.H. 460 at page 463, 69 A. 522 at page 524, 17 L.R.A.,N.S., 594. If neither mother nor child can recover, then a life impaired by another’s fault must be endured without the recompense which the law provides for other persons wrongfully injured. The law should take care that, wherever possible, a wrong should not go completely unrequited.
“The semantic argument whether an unborn child is a ‘person in being’ seems to us to be beside the point. There is no question that conception sets in motion biological processes which if undisturbed will produce what every one will concede to be a person in being. If in the meanwhile those processes can be disrupted resulting in harm to the child when born, it is immaterial whether before birth the child is considered a person in being. And regardless of analogies to other areas of the law, justice requires that the principle be recognized that a child has a legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body. If the wrongful conduct of another interferes with that right, and it can be established by competent proof that there is a causal connection between the wrongful interference and the harm suffered by the child when born, damages for such harm should be recoverable by the child.
“We conclude that the reasons advanced for the decisions denying recovery to a child who survives a prenatal injury are inadequate. They deny basic medical knowledge; they ignore the protection afforded unborn children by other branches of the law, and are founded upon fears which should not weigh with the courts. We believe that a surviving child should have a right of action in tort for prenatal injuries for the plain reason that it would be unjust to deny it. Therefore, the rule of Stemmer v. Kline [128 N.J.L. 455, 26 A.2d 489 (1942)] is no longer the law of this State.”
Smith v. Brennan, 31 N.J. 353, 157 A.2d 497, 502-04 (1960).
The Berman case, relied upon in Part II of the majority opinion is not inapposite to the New Jersey court’s holding in Smith, the injury in that case not being chargeable to medical malpractice but to an automobile *266collision. Nor are the facts in Berman on a par with the facts in Dessie’s case. In Berman the alleged medical negligence was in not utilizing a pre-natal procedure known as amniocentesis which allegedly would have revealed a genetic defect. In Dessie’s case, however, the claim of negligence is the entirely different claim of the failure to diagnose or discover German measles which were allegedly the cause of Dessie’s birth defects. The Berman court specifically noted that there was no contention that “absent defendant’s negligence she [Sharon] would have come into the world in a normal and healthy state.” 404 A.2d at 11. As to claimed damages in Berman, that court noted, 404 A.2d at 10, that the parents “request damages in their own right both for the emotional anguish which they have experienced and will continue to experience on account of Sharon’s birth defect, and on the medical and other costs which they will incur in order to properly raise, educate and supervise the child.” The Berman court was careful to explicitly distinguish the facts of that case from Sylvia, supra,- and its own Smith:
“As such, this case presents issues different from those involved in malpractice actions where a plaintiff asserts that a defendant’s deviation from sound medical practices increased the probability that an infant would be born with defects. See, e.g., Sylvia v. Gobeille, 101 R.I. 76, 220 A.2d 222 (1966). Nor are we here confronted with a situation in which an individual’s negligence while a child was in gestation caused what otherwise would have been a normal and healthy child to come into the world in an impaired condition. See, e.g., Smith v. Brennan, 31 N.J. 353, 157 A.2d 497 (1960); W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 55 at 335-338 (4th Ed.1971). Here, defendants’ alleged negligence neither caused the mongoloid condition nor increased the risk that such a condition would occur.”
Berman, supra, at 11.
Although the Berman court is to be commended for its partial overruling of its earlier Gleitman case to the point of allowing the Berman parents a right of recovery for emotional anguish, that is the extent of its holding which has any applicability to this case where we consider the claim of Dessie and the claim of her parents.. Obviously, the ratio decedendi of that case hinged on the fact of genetic defects and not on negligence and resultant pre-natal injury. As stated in an earlier part of this opinion, putting aside semantical terms such as wrongful birth and wrongful life, the facts of this case are simply that Dessie was born, she lives, and her life in a crippled condition is allegedly attributable to the defendant. As with other injured persons who cannot be restored to physical and mental normality, she should be entitled to general damages which adequately compensate her, and to special damages as well. Her parents, by reason of Idaho law, may also be found entitled to identical special damages, a matter of overlapping to be taken care of at the trial level, and, where they are found to have suffered loss of income and other such damages by reason of being required to devote their time to Dessie, such would seem to be a proper element, along with damages for emotional distress. See Harbeson, discussed infra.
If it were necessary in order to find a cause of action in a genetically defective child whose birth would not have taken place had there not been negligence in medical procedures or medical diagnosis, in order that there would be a recovery of the extraordinary expenses to be incurred during the child’s life time, then the views of a unanimous Supreme Court of Washington in Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc., 98 Wash.2d 460, 656 P.2d 483 (1983), are sound and will ultimately prevail in all jurisdictions, just as Bennett led other jurisdictions into becoming prevailing majority rule. The Washington court, utilizing the wrongful life terminology first initiated by commentators, noted its earlier case involving pre-natal injuries, Seattle-First National Bank v. Rankin, which is herein extensively quoted from, and proceeded to hold that, in a wrongful life action, based on the extension of a physician’s duty of care to *267“persons not conceived at the time of the negligent action or omission,” 656 P.2d at 495, the defective child subsequently born may be entitled to a recovery of incurred and future incurrable extraordinary expenses. And, while there may be some substance to the Washington court’s belief that measuring the value of an impaired life as compared to nonexistence is a task that is beyond mortals, it is my view that the law review articles and the New Jersey court have led the Washington court astray — which will all be straightened out in due time. The real comparison to be drawn is between a normal life and an impaired life. Nonexistence is oblivion, and nothing can be measured against oblivion — concerning which nothing is known. But society in general, and courts in particular, have forever dealt with reality, the reality of comparing any injured person’s condition prior to and after injury.
So that it may be entirely clear, the reason for this separate opinion is to make it crystal clear that I join overwhelming authority which holds that:
(a) A child who was injured by the prenatal negligence of another is possessed of a cause of action, and as with all tortiously injured persons, upon proper proof is entitled to general and special damages. [This is no more than we held in Volk, as a predicate to recognizing the right in parents to recover for the death of an unborn child.]
(b) Under Idaho statutory law, the parents also may maintain an action for special damages occasioned by their child being born with crippling defects proven to be attributable to third-party negligence.
(c) Such special damages in (b) may in part be identical to some of the special damages which are recoverable by the child. But, as alleged in this case, the parents also may be entitled to other special damages occasioned, for instance, by loss of income because of being required to confer additional care, attention, and instruction upon the child which would not normally be required.
(d)There are some general damages which are recoverable by the parents, as discussed in cases, above-cited and above-quoted.
Now, it may be that the opinion for the Court accomplishes all of the foregoing, and it may be that I am unduly alarmed by the wrongful life discussion in Part II. If there were any need to endorse that doctrine in order to award complete relief, then I would do so. If the majority in Part II is agreeing with the New Jersey court’s 1 venture into theology, “that life — whether experienced with or without a major physical handicap — is more precious than non-life,” as a talisman for refusing Dessie Blake a recovery of general damages, then I fear that I may have “stepped through the looking glass.”
ADDENDUM
Just a word concerning the dissent of Justice Bakes as to the application of the Statute of Limitations to the parents’ cause of action for special damages. His present stance in this case is contrary to what he wrote in dissent in Ralphs v. Spirit Lake, 98 Idaho 225, 228, 560 P.2d 1315, 1318-19 (1977). There he wrote to explain the distinction to be properly drawn between tort actions sounding in willfulness and those sounding in negligence:
“First, the complaint in this case alleges a claim against the chief of police and the city of Spirit Lake grounded in negligence. As to these defendants, there is no issue of a battery, or any intentional tort. The defendant police chief allegedly breached his duty to this plaintiff by failing to stop the criminal assault on the plaintiff on the 25th or 26th of May, 1974. The claim against the city was *268based upon negligence, both vicarious and independent. The ‘additional injuries’ which were the basis of plaintiff’s complaint were not discovered until August 10, 1975.
“While the victim of an intentional tort has a right of action for nominal damages from the time of the wrongful act, this is not the case in negligence actions. Professor Prosser states that a necessary element to a cause of action for negligence is
‘[ajctual loss or damage resulting to the interests of another. Since the action for negligence developed chiefly out of the old form of action on the case, it retained the rule of that action, that proof of damage was an essential part of plaintiff’s case. Nominal damages, to vindicate a technical right, cannot be recovered in a negligence action, where no actual loss has occurred.’ Prosser, Law of Torts, 4th Ed. (1971), p. 143.”
He then observes:
“ ‘It follows that the statute of limitations does not begin to run against a negligence action until some damage has occurred.’ Id., at 144.
“See also the discussion of the actual damage requirement in United States v. Reid, 251 F.2d 691 (5th Cir.1958), cited by the majority and Justice Bistline. It is possible that this plaintiff did not sustain any injuries as would support an action in negligence on the date of the assault and battery, but that the injuries discovered on August 10, 1975, were the first indications that he had suffered actionable damages from the incident. If that were the case, I believe that he did not have a cause of action against the city or the chief of police until that date.” Ralphs, supra, at 228-29, 560 P.2d at 1319.
He was eminently correct in that view. Moreover, the statute of limitations is not even a factor in Dessie’s right in her own name to have a recovery for those same extraordinary expenses which the parents are also entitled to recover. As I have said, and now note, the same view of the unanimous Washington Supreme Court, wherein it approved of language in Turpin v. Sortini, 31 Cal.3d 220, 182 Cal.Rptr. 337, 643 P.2d 954, 965 (Cal.1982) that “it would be illogical and anomalous to permit only parents, and not the child, to recover for the cost of the child’s own medical care,” it declared:
“The child’s need for medical care and other special costs attributable to his defect will not miraculously disappear when the child attains his majority. In many cases, the burden of those expenses will fall on the child’s parents or the state. Rather than allowing this to occur by refusing to recognize the cause of action, we prefer to place the burden of those costs on the party whose negligence was in fact a proximate cause of the child’s continuing need for such special medical care and training.” Harbeson, supra, 656 P.2d at 495.

. I noted infra that the quickening New Jersey court in Berman reversed its ten-year-old Gleitman holding. As the Washington Supreme Court noted in Harbeson, only two years after Berman, that court, in Schroeder v. Perkel, 87 NJ. 53, 432 A.2d 834 (1981), did yet another turnabout and brought itself to the conclusion that parents should receive special damages in addition to general damages for mental anguish.