A wrongful life lawsuit is a personal injury and medical malpractice claim brought by a child, alleging that a doctor or similar party’s malpractice caused them to be born with life-altering birth defects or difficulties. These difficulties essentially prevent the children victims from living a full life. Potential defendants (people who can be sued) in a wrongful life lawsuit are doctors, surgeons, and mental health institutions.
Unlike most personal injury cases, the compensation that children can recover in these cases is limited to the losses associated with the birth injury. This can include compensation for such things as:
- medical expenses for treating the birth injury,
- future medical bills associated with special care that the child needs,
- specialized non-medical care that the child will need, like wheelchairs and special education, and
- home modifications to accommodate the child’s disabilities and physical injuries.
Children are not entitled to pain and suffering in wrongful life cases.
Wrongful life claims are not the same as wrongful birth lawsuits. In most jurisdictions, the latter are brought by the parent or parents of a child who was born with severe medical issues and argue that a doctor or hospital failed to diagnose a serious condition in a fetus or unborn child.
Parents can claim the same damages in wrongful birth claims as those claimed by children in wrongful life cases.
Our California personal injury attorneys will explain the following in this article:
- 1. What is a wrongful life cause of action?
- 2. Who are the defendants in a wrongful life claim?
- 3. What compensation can a child recover?
- 4. What are wrongful birth cases?
- 5. What is the law in California?
Wrongful life lawsuits are personal injury and medical malpractice claims brought by children, alleging that a doctor or similar party’s malpractice caused them to be born with life-altering birth defects or difficulties.
1. What is a wrongful life cause of action?
In nearly all jurisdictions, wrongful life actions are filed by children who were born with some type of birth defect or abnormality. The lawsuits allege that:
- a doctor’s malpractice caused a child to be born with life-altering difficulties, and
- these difficulties cause a diminished quality of life for the child and/or somehow impede the child’s life.1
Note that the malpractice that caused a child’s abnormalities could have happened before or after the conception of the child.
Malpractice that happens before the child’s conception is often the doctor’s failure to detect genetic conditions in the parents. As a result of the defendant’s negligence, the child is born with a life-altering medical problem.
Malpractice that happens after the child’s conception often involves a doctor’s failure to diagnose a congenital defect in the fetus. The child is then born with a birth injury that impairs the rest of their life.
Example: Doctors in New York take a blood sample from a pregnant woman, but do not test it. They fail to discover that the fetus has congenital hydrocephalus and spina bifida. This genetic impairment affects everyday life.
Here, the disabled child could successfully file a wrongful life action against the doctors.
Note that most state laws require children to show that they have suffered especially severe injuries for them to succeed in these lawsuits.
Examples of some congenital and birth injuries that may support a wrongful life lawsuit include:
- hereditary deafness,
- Tay-Sachs disease (a genetic disorder that destroys nerve cells and leads to death in early childhood), and
- congenital hydrocephalus and spina bifida.
2. Who are the defendants in a wrongful life claim?
The defendants in a wrongful life action are typically the doctors, physicians, or healthcare providers whose malpractice caused a child to be born with life-altering difficulties. A doctor’s employer, often a clinic or hospital, can also be held liable through vicarious liability if the malpractice happened on the job.2
As a matter of public policy, people who are outside the medical profession cannot be liable in a wrongful life lawsuit. These people or companies do not have a legal duty to keep children safe or healthy.3
The compensation available to a child in a wrongful life suit is limited to losses associated with the birth injury.
3. What compensation can a child recover?
The compensation available to a child in a wrongful life suit is limited to losses associated with the birth injury. Damages generally include:
- medical expenses for treating the birth defect,
- future medical care bills associated with special care and medical treatment that the child will need,
- specialized non-medical care that the child will need, like wheelchairs and special education, and
- home modifications to accommodate the child’s disabilities and injuries.
Note that this compensation is far more limited than the general damages that are available in other personal injury cases. In these other cases, plaintiffs can recover:
- medical expenses,
- lost earning capacity,
- emotional distress,
- pain and suffering, and
- loss of consortium.
4. What are wrongful birth cases?
A wrongful birth lawsuit is a separate cause of action from a wrongful life case.
In wrongful birth cases, a parent or parents have a legal claim against a healthcare provider or hospital because their child was born with serious medical issues.
In particular, the parents assert that the defendant medical providers or defendant institution either:
- misdiagnosed a condition of their unborn child, or
- provided negligent genetic testing or counseling about the probability of the fetus being born with birth defects.4
Due to the defendant’s negligence or alleged misdiagnosis, an infant is born with abnormalities requiring extensive medical care (which translates into significant medical expenses).
The parents in a wrongful birth claim also generally assert that, because of a provider’s negligence, they were not given the opportunity to make an informed decision about their child. In particular, if they had known of a defect, they would have either:
- avoided the wrongful pregnancy, or
- ended the pregnancy (usually after the second trimester and not the first trimester).
Example: Lisa is two months pregnant and visits an obstetrician for a routine checkup. The physician fails to diagnose Lisa with rubella.
With the birth of a child, Lisa’s baby is born with congenital rubella. This is a condition that can result in heart malformations and deafness.
Lisa can later bring a wrongful birth action against the obstetrician and allege that he/she negligently failed to diagnose rubella.
Note that a wrongful death lawsuit is different from both a wrongful birth and wrongful life lawsuit. In a wrongful death case, a deceased’s family members sue a person for damages when the decedent died as a result of that person’s negligence or recklessness.
5. What is the law in California?
California law on wrongful life lawsuits generally follows the above discussion.
A child will succeed in bringing a suit if they can prove the following:
- a doctor’s negligence resulted in not discovering the risks of a child’s disability,
- the child was born with a disability,
- if the child’s parents had known of the disability, they would not have had the child, and
- the doctor’s negligence was a substantial factor in the child’s birth.5
As stated above, children in California generally have to show that they suffered a severe injury for them to succeed with a wrongful life suit.
Courts have found a severe injury in a case in which a child suffered from:
- hereditary deafness,6
- Tay-Sachs disease,7
- congenital hydrocephalus and spina bifida,8 and
- autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, (a potentially fatal kidney problem).9
Courts have not found a severe injury where a child suffered from:
- social stigmatization of being born out of wedlock,10 or
- the unrealized risk of being born with a mental disability.11
Note that if a child succeeds in bringing this type of action in California, he/she is limited to receiving the damages stated above.
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Legal References:
- See, for example, Zepeda v. Zepeda, 190 N.E.2d 849 (1963); Phillips v. United States, 508 F. Supp. 537 (D.C.S.C. 1980); Becker v. Schwartz, 386 N.E.2d 807 (New York, 1978); Slawek v. Stroh, 215 N.W.2d 9 (1974); Procanik v. Cillo, 478 A.2d 755 (New Jersey Supreme Court, 1984); Speck v. Finegold, 408 A.2d 496 (1979); Goldberg v. Ruskin, 499 N.E. 2d 406 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1986); Blake v. Cruz, 698 P.2d 315 (1984); and, Wrongful life’: The right not to be born”. Tulane Law Review. 54 (2): 480–99. PMID).
- See, for example, Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles (1991) 814 P.2d 1341.
- See, for example, Elsheref v. Applied Materials, Inc. (2014) 223 Cal. App. 4th 451.
- As to genetic testing, typically parents file wrongful birth actions when they have a genetic condition or genetic disease that carry a high probability of having a disabled child. Their children then get born with genetic disorders and the parents claim that, during genetic counseling, their doctors failed to diagnose the disorders.
- California Civil Jury Instructions (“CACI”) 513. See also Turpin v. Sortini, 643 P.2d 954 (1982); and, Curlander v. Bio-Science Laboratories, 106 Cal.App.3d 811 (1980).
- Turpin v. Sortini, 643 P.2d 954 (1982).
- Curlander v. Bio-Science Laboratories, 106 Cal.App.3d 811 (1980).
- Gami v. Mullikin Medical Center, 18 Cal. App. 4th 870 (Cal. App. 1993).
- Johnson v. Superior Court, 101 Cal. App. 4th 869 (Cal. App. 2002).
- Stills v. Gratton, 55 Cal. App. 3d 698 (Cal. App. 1976).
- Foy v. Greenblott, 141 Cal. App. 3d 1 (Cal. App. 1983).