Garrison by Garrison v. Medical Center of Delaware Inc., 193,1988
| Decision Date | 13 December 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 193,1988,193,1988 |
| Parties | Hope GARRISON, by Her Next Friend, Charles GARRISON; Efser Garrison and Charles S. Garrison, Plaintiffs Below, Appellants, v. The MEDICAL CENTER OF DELAWARE INC., a Corporation of the State of Delaware, Elizabeth Bove and Digamber Borgaonkar, PH.D., Defendants Below, Appellees. . Submitted: |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
Before CHRISTIE, Chief Justice, and HORSEY, MOORE, WALSH and HOLLAND, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.
This 12th day of December, 1989, it appears to the Court that:
(1) This is a medical malpractice action. Plaintiffs are: Hope Garrison, an infant, and Charles S. Garrison and Efser Garrison, the infant's parents. Defendants are: Elizabeth Bove and Digamber Borgaonkar and The Medical Center of Delaware, Inc. Hope Garrison was born November 30, 1986 with Down's Syndrome. By their complaint filed in December 1987, plaintiffs assert claims against defendants for "wrongful birth" and for "wrongful life." Plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly performed a medical procedure known as amniocentesis and negligently delayed informing the plaintiff parents of the results of the chromosome study during the early months of the mother's pregnancy. As a result of the defendants' delay in completing the study, the plaintiff parents contend that they were not informed of the existence in the fetus of the Down's Syndrome chromosome until the third trimester of pregnancy. The parents contend that they were thereby deprived of the opportunity to make an informed decision and choice of whether to give birth to the child or to undergo a timely and legal abortion of the mother's defective fetus. As a consequence, the parents allege that they were left with no choice but to continue the pregnancy and to carry the child to term. The mother asserts that she would have undergone an abortion if she had been advised of the presence of the Down's Syndrome chromosome prior to the end of her second trimester and that she had so informed her doctors.
(2) Following the filing by defendants in Superior Court of a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a legally cognizable claim for relief under Delaware law, the parties stipulated that plaintiff's above-stated allegations should be taken to be undisputed facts and assumed to be true for the purpose of ruling on defendants' motion. Superior Court then certified the following questions to this Court under Supreme Court Rule 41:
1. Do the parents of a child born with a genetic defect have a cause of action for "wrongful birth" against a health care provider whose negligence deprived them of the opportunity to decide whether to continue the pregnancy of the defective child to term?
2. Does a child born with genetic defects have a cause of action for "wrongful life" against a health care provider whose negligence deprived the child's parents of the opportunity to accept or reject the child's birth?
(3) Following this Court's acceptance of the questions certified on June 9, 1988, and briefing and argument before a panel of this Court on November 1, 1988, the case was rescheduled for hearing before the Court en Banc and was heard on December 13, 1988.
(4) By Order dated March 23, 1989, this Court directed supplemental briefing on further questions posed by the Court; and supplemental briefing was completed on or about July 13, 1989. The Court is now satisfied that the parties have fully addressed the novel issues presented and the matter is ripe for decision.
(5) The questions certified in this case are ones of first impression in this State and the resolution of such questions, prior to any discovery and trial in Superior Court, is important to the parties, as well as others...
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Pacheco v. United States
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