Court Opinion

ID: 9772044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:05:43.214455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:41.803126
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
concurring and concurring in result.
I concur in all but Part V of the majority opinion. I do not join Part V because, in my opinion, it is obiter dictum that does not reflect the Court’s experience.
The principal opinion asserts that the difficulties that attend proof of damages in wrongful death actions for viable unborn children “are all the more glaring in a case involving a child that has not even reached the point of viability in the womb.” (Majority op. at 93.) I disagree. I can see no greater difficulty in proving damages for an *94unborn, nonviable child than for an unborn, viable child. To the extent those “difficulties” exist, they are the product of this Court’s decision in O’Grady v. Brown, 654 S.W.2d 904 (Mo. banc 1983), not of the Court’s decision today. In the dozen years since O’Grady, the trial bench and trial bar have apparently managed to establish a process for working through those difficulties. If they have not established such a process, they have maintained a remarkable silence in the face of their frustration.