Court Opinion

ID: 9710360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:08:04.720742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:56.257358
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring specialty)-
I join the majority opinion and add these further observations.
The doctor breaches a duty to inform the patient of a pertinent medical test. The patient says that but for the doctor’s negligence she would have chosen to take the test and would then have further chosen a particular course of treatment that would have avoided the harm sustained. So stated, the wrongful birth action seemingly resembles an ordinary, common law medical malpractice action. A closer look, however, reveals differences. A wrongful birth action, by its use of “but for” causation, requires a woman who delivers a handicapped baby to choose hypothetically, post facto, whether or not to have an abortion. If one plaintiff says she would have had an abortion, she can sue the doctor. If another plaintiff says she would not have had an abortion, she cannot sue. Both women exercise their right of choice, both have a handicapped child, but only one has a cause of action for compensatory damages. The woman who chooses not to have an abortion is penalized unless one assumes, contrary to the assumption of the wrongful birth rationale, that the birth of a handicapped child is not an injurious harm cognizable in tort law. Then, too, the hypothetical exercise of selecting a course of treatment is troublesome. Compare Kuchenmeister v. Illinois Farmers Insurance Co., 310 N.W.2d 86, 89 (Minn.1981), where we said the fact issue whether an insured would have purchased insurance if offered by the insurer was “too speculative,” and the law would assume the insured would have bought the insurance. But here, if it were presumed all plaintiffs would hypothetically choose abortion, the right to choose — which is what is constitutionally protected — would be obliterated.
Our purpose here, however, is not to argue the merits of a wrongful birth action but only to suggest the dynamics of the proposed action are as legally complex as they are personalty agonizing. This much is clear. A tort of wrongful birth is not an accepted part of existing common law but would be something new. Common law tort liability involves more than the mechanical application of generic tort rules; rather, the application of tort rules to create new tort liability depends on the social, cultural, and religious concerns of the people, concerns which a legislature under our system of government is especially designed to reflect.
The issue before us, we should remember, is not whether the court should recognize a new common law cause of action. That issue has been preempted by the legislature. Minn.Stat. § 145.424, subd. 2 (1984), provides: “No person shall maintain a cause of action or receive an award of damages on the claim that but for the *16negligent conduct of another, a child would have been aborted.” Absent interference with a constitutional right, a legislature is free to decide whether or not to recognize a wrongful birth action.
I.
Not every duty owed not to injure people gives rise to a tort suit for money damages.1 In this case, however, plaintiffs contend failure to provide a suit for money damages against a negligent doctor is an intrusion on a constitutional right. They argue the Minnesota statute eliminates what the trial court calls “a significant disincentive” for a doctor to practice medicine nonnegligently. They also argue section 145.424, subd. 2, allows a doctor to withhold information that may help the patient to make an informed decision on abortion and this interferes with a woman’s exercise of her constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973).
It is, however, disingenuous to say the statute “allows” a doctor to withhold information. The statute neither allows nor disallows. A doctor has a well-recognized professional duty to provide a patient with information necessary for any medical treatment decision, including a decision on abortion. Indeed, in this case, notwithstanding section 145.424, the defendant doctor recognized his duty to inform plaintiffs about amniocentesis, a duty imposed by the standards of medical practice and the code of medical ethics, and a duty subject to intraprofessional sanctions. The statute does not interfere with this duty. There are no “intrusive informational prescriptions.” Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 2169, 90 L.Ed.2d 779 (1986). If a doctor, for reasons of personal ethics, does not wish to be involved in a patient’s abortion decision-making, he is ethically bound to refer the patient elsewhere for the medical care the patient is entitled to receive; and if the doctor refuses to make the referral, his intentional conduct would not be protected by section 145.424.
If doctors know they can be sued for money damages, presumably they will be more likely to practice medicine carefully. Presumably, too, doctors try to be careful whether or not they can be sued. But in an imperfect world, even with lawsuits, people will still be careless.2 This is not to denigrate the tort remedy, but only to observe the indirect and problematic consequences of the absence of a tort deterrent does not constitute a direct impact that intrudes on a person’s constitutional right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
*17At what point does state interference with the exercise of plaintiffs constitutional right arise? The United States Supreme Court, in other situations, has required a “direct” impact on the woman’s abortion decisionmaking, Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464, 97 S.Ct. 2376, 53 L.Ed.2d 484 (1977), or a “significant burden,” Planned Parenthood Ass’n v. Ashcroft, 462 U.S. 476, 103 S.Ct. 2517, 76 L.Ed.2d 733 (1983). Or, put another way, “although government may not place obstacles in the path of a woman’s exercise of her freedom of choice, it need not remove those not of its own creation.” Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 316, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 2687, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980). But here, if the doctor’s inadvertence or carelessness places an obstacle in the path of plaintiff’s abortion decisionmak-ing, it is placed there by the doctor, not the state. The doctor, not the state, is precluding the patient from making an informed abortion decision. Nor is the doctor’s conduct, which is negligence, a form of private discrimination. A doctor who inadvertently fails to provide certain treatment is not engaged in invidious partiality; he is only failing to use due care.
Putting the issue another way, there is, as the majority opinion explains, a lack of “state action.” Unlike the state action found in Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 380-81, 87 S.Ct. 1627, 1633-34, 18 L.Ed.2d 830 (1967), Minn.Stat. § 145.424 does not authorize nor is it intended to authorize action which discriminates or interferes with a woman’s right to an abortion. In the absence of state action, plaintiffs’ constitutional right under the 14th amendment to make an informed abortion decision is not involved. Neither can plaintiffs’ effort to create a constitutionally mandated tort remedy under article 1, section 8 of the Minnesota Constitution (a legal remedy for every wrong) be successful. As the majority opinion holds, and without disagreement from the dissent, there is no violation of this section of our constitution.
II.
Plaintiffs argue section 145.424 violates the equal protection clause because subdivision 2 denies a cause of action for wrongful birth while subdivision 3 allows a cause of action for wrongful conception. Plaintiffs contend the statute “permits a wrongful birth cause of action based upon negligence in connection with sterilization or birth control practices but denies a cause of action based upon negligence frustrating the abortion decision.”
As explained above, section 145.424 does not implicate plaintiffs’ constitutional right to make an informed decision on abortion. Consequently, the rational basis test applies to plaintiffs’ equal protection claim. City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3254, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985); Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 464, 101 S.Ct. 715, 723, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1981). In 1977 this court recognized a wrongful conception action. Sherlock v. Stillwater Clinic, 260 N.W.2d 169 (Minn.1977). In 1982, the Minnesota Legislature enacted section 145.424. In subdivision 3 it did not “create” a new wrongful conception cause of action but simply recognized the existing common law under Sherlock. The legislature did, however, in subdivision 2, elect not to extend the rationale of Sherlock to create a new cause of action for wrongful birth.
While there are similarities between the two kinds of actions, there are also great differences, and these differences establish a rational basis for the legislature’s action. In both cases, the plaintiff would not have had the child but for the negligence of the doctor, but the interests sought to be compensated are different. In the one case, there is the right not to conceive; in the other, there is the right not to give birth. In the one, it is the right not to have an unplanned child, while in the other it is the right not to have an unwanted child. In the one case, there is no hypothetical exercise of choice of treatment, while in the other case there is.
In Sherlock, the court was troubled by the moral and ethical interests involved in a wrongful conception suit. It recognized *18the difficulties of reducing those interests to a claim for money. A majority of that court, somewhat hesitantly, allowed the cause of action, observing “[t]he result we reach today is at best a mortal attempt to do justice in an imperfect world.” Id. at 176. In deciding not to extend the Sherlock rationale to a wrongful birth cause of action, the legislature could have decided the already perplexing problems of Sherlock would have been compounded and exacerbated and that a further tort remedy was not warranted.

. E.g., Holmquist v. Miller, 367 N.W.2d 468 (Minn.1985) (a social host has a duty not to furnish intoxicating liquor to an obviously intoxicated guest, but, by reason of legislative preemption, no tort action for damages by an injured person will lie against the host); Olson v. Ische, 343 N.W.2d 284 (Minn.1984) (a passenger may have a duty to others to discourage a reckless driver from driving but the duty is not legally cognizable). One who transports a child in a motor vehicle failing to use a passenger restraint system breaches a duty recognized by the criminal law (making such failure a misdemeanor) but this failure cannot be the basis of a suit for money damages. Minn.Stat. § 169.685 (1984).
In Salin v. Kloempken, 322 N.W.2d 736 (Minn.1982), this court declined to recognize a common law tort remedy for a child’s loss of parental consortium resulting from injuries negligently inflicted on the parent by a negligent third party. The court cited various policy reasons, adding, "The intangible nature of the child’s loss makes it difficult to assess damages and provides a further reason against judicial recognition of the cause of action." Id. at 740.

. In 1970 the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan made a study of public attitudes toward auto insurance for the United States Department of Transportation. One survey question was whether tort liability for damages influences people’s driving behavior. Of the persons responding, 14% said yes, 17% said liability had some influence, 58% said liability makes no difference, and the remaining 11% either did not know or their answer could not be ascertained. Nearly 70% of the respondents who had some accident experience felt liability had no effect on a person’s driving. Public Attitudes Toward Auto Insurance, A Report of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, to the Department of Transportation 67-68 (March 1970).