Court Opinion

ID: 9646118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:49:30.77896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:34.392489
License: Public Domain

HIGGINS, Judge,
dissenting.
With due respect for the principal opinion, I find myself in dissent for the reasons that follow.
On defendants’ motion to dismiss, plaintiffs’ petition (First Amended Petition for Damages) was dismissed by the trial court for failure to state a cause of action. I believe this presents the only question ripe for discussion in this case.
On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action, the reviewing court accepts as true the facts properly pleaded, giving the averments a liberal construction, and making those reasonable inferences fairly deductible from the facts stated. Stiffelman v. Abrams, 655 S.W.2d 522 (Mo. banc 1988); Concerned, Parents v. Caruthersville School District, 548 S.W.2d 554 (Mo. banc 1977). In this judgment of sufficiency of the petition, the Court is not concerned with what the evidence may prove. Empiregas, Inc., of Noel v. Hoover Ball & Bearing Co., 507 S.W.2d 657 (Mo. banc 1974).
Plaintiffs Carl and Barbara Wilson are the parents of plaintiff Robert Wilson, bom June 23, 1983, afflicted with Down’s Syndrome. Defendant Donald Kuenzi is a medical doctor specializing in family practice including obstetrics and gynecology in an association of Kuenzi, Hayes, Kirkland and Wilson, M.D.S, Inc., in Gladstone, Clay County, Missouri.
Plaintiffs’ petition is in two counts, I for the minor’s claim and II for the parents’ claim.
They alleged that defendants were negligent:
1. By failing to advise and warn the mother that she was statistically at risk to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome child because of her advanced age at conception;
2. By failing to offer or perform the test known as amniocentesis;
3. By failing to offer or perform genetic counseling;
4. By failing to refer the mother to a specialist for genetic counseling;
5. By failing to disclose facts to the mother from which she could make an informed choice to terminate her pregnancy;
6. By failing generally to adhere to the requisite standard of care required of health care providers;
*7487. That as a direct and proximate result of defendant’s negligence, plaintiffs were damaged.
Following entry of the dismissal of the First Amended Petition, plaintiffs moved, unsuccessfully, to set aside the dismissal and secure leave to file a Second Amended Petition which alleged that defendants were negligent:
1. By realizing the mother was at risk to give birth to a mentally retarded child, or legally held to realize the risk;
2. By knowing the mother did not realize the risk, and failing to advise and warn her of the risk;
3. By failing to advise the mother of the existence and availability of amniocentesis;
4. By failing to advise the mother of pertinent facts concerning her pregnancy thereby denying her the opportunity to make an informed choice with respect to termination of her pregnancy;
5. By failing generally to adhere to the requisite standard of care required of health providers;
6. By failing to advise the mother of genetic counseling and testing with respect to determining whether to carry her pregnancy to full term;
7. By failing to advise the mother fully thereby depriving her of opportunity to make an informed choice with respect to her pregnancy;
8. That as a direct result of defendants’ negligence, plaintiffs were damaged.
In my opinion, plaintiffs’ petition survives defendant’s Motion to Dismiss under the tests of Stiffelman, Concerned Parents and Empiregas and the standard enunciated in Aiken v. Clary, 396 S.W.2d 668 (Mo.1965), that a doctor who fails to adhere to the standard of reasonable care is guilty of malpractice whether consisting of improper care and treatment or of failure to inform sufficiently to enable the patient to make a judgment and give informed consent with respect to treatment. In short, the pleading demonstrates the requisite elements of a cause of action of duty, breach of duty, proximate cause and damage. Although the ascertainment of damages may be difficult in this case, the alleged tortfeasor cannot escape liability simply because damages cannot be measured with exactness. Ohlendorf v. Feinstein, 670 S.W.2d 930 (Mo.App.1984).
Apropos this case is the observation by Professor Prosser:
There is no necessity whatever that a tort must have a name. New and nameless torts are being recognized constantly, and the progress of the common law is marked by many cases of first impression, in which the court has struck out boldly to create a new cause of action, where none had been recognized before. The intentional infliction of mental suffering, the obstruction of the plaintiff’s right to go where he likes, the invasion of his right of privacy, the denial of his right to vote, the conveyance of land to defeat a title, the infliction of prenatal injuries, and the alienation of the affections of a parent, to name only a few instances, could not be fitted into any accepted classifications when they first arose, but nevertheless have been held to be torts. The law of torts is anything but static, and the limits of its development are never set. When it becomes clear that the plaintiff’s interests are entitled to legal protection against the conduct of the defendant, the mere fact that the claim is novel will not of itself operate as a bar to the remedy.
Prosser, The Law of Torts, pages 3-4 (3rd Ed.1964).
I would reverse the judgment of dismissal and remand this case for further proceedings.