In re House
Decision Date | 16 February 2016 |
Docket Number | No. COA15–879.,COA15–879. |
Citation | 782 S.E.2d 115,245 N.C.App. 388 |
Parties | In the Matter of HOUSE, Claim for Compensation Under the North Carolina Eugenics Asexualization and Sterilization Compensation Program, Claimant–Appellant. |
Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
The Bollinger Law Firm, PC, Charlotte, by Bobby L. Bollinger, Jr., for Claimant–Appellant.
Attorney General, Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General, Marc X. Sneed, for North Carolina Department of Justice, Tort Claims Section.
The North Carolina Industrial Commission ("the Industrial Commission") found that Ms. House1 ("Claimant") was involuntarily sterilized on 27 November 1974. The Industrial Commission based this finding in part on Claimant's testimony of 7 August 2014. Claimant testified that a Cleveland County Department of Social Services ("DSS") worker accompanied her to Cleveland Memorial Hospital in Shelby to obtain an abortion and a tubal ligation. Claimant testified:
[The DSS worker] gave [the doctor] some papers to be signed, and [the doctor] asked me if I wanted to have an abortion. I said, "Yes, sir, but, no, sir," and [the doctor] asked me what I meant, and I told him that the [DSS] worker—that I couldn't keep my two daughters if I didn't have an abortion, and [the doctor] told [the DSS worker] that he could not do it under those circumstances, and so—which we went out in the hall. [The DSS worker] beat me against the wall and told me again that if I did not have this done, I would lose my two girls, and so she took me home. .... And I went home and I cried all night, and I went back the next day, and because the Department of Social Services had custody of me, I had to have the surgery done.
The Industrial Commission found:
4. Ms. House's medical records that were included in the record indicate that she was taken by "the Social Service people" to Cleveland Memorial Hospital in Shelby, North Carolina, in November 1974. Ms. House was nine weeks pregnant at the time. The history and physical examination note by Dr. W.J. Collins states that Ms. House ... was a A subsequent medical note states that she underwent a "vaginal tubal and therapeutic D & C." This note also separately describes the procedures as "therapeutic D & C, bilateral partial salpingectomy
." The procedures took place on 27 November 1974, resulting in the abortion of her nine-week old, unborn child.
In 2013, the General Assembly enacted the Eugenics Asexualization and Sterilization Compensation Program ("the Compensation Program"), N.C. Gen.Stat. § 143B–426.50 et seq. , in order to provide compensation to individuals asexualized or sterilized pursuant to the North Carolina eugenics laws. The Compensation Program defined a "qualified recipient" under the Compensation Program as "[a]n individual who was asexualized involuntarily or sterilized involuntarily under the authority of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina in accordance with Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of 1933 or Chapter 221 of the Public Laws of 1937." N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143B426.50(5) (2013).
Chapter 221 of the Public Laws of 1937 related to the temporary admission of "patients" to State hospitals "for the purpose of sterilization," and is not relevant to the present appeal. 1937 N.C. Public Laws, ch. 221. Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of 1933, as amended by Chapter 463 of the Public Laws of 1935, ("the Eugenics Act"), stated in relevant part:
1933 N.C. Public Laws, ch. 224 (some emphasis added); 1935 N.C. Public Laws, ch. 463, § 2. Unlike other state eugenics programs, "North Carolina [was] the only state that require[d] public officials, specifically directors of state institutions and county directors of social services, to petition ... for the sterilization of the mentally disabled." Joe Zumpano–Canto, Nonconsensual Sterilization of the Mentally Disabled in North Carolina: An Ethics Critique of the Statutory Standard and Its Judicial Interpretation, 13 Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy, Issue 1, 84 (1996) (emphasis added).
Claimant was involuntarily...
To continue reading
Request your trial- Heron Bay Acquisition, LLC v. United Metal Finishing, Inc.
- Adams v. City of Raleigh
-
In re Davis
...and Sterilization Compensation Program ("Compensation Program") based upon our prior opinion in In re House , ––– N.C. App. ––––, 782 S.E.2d 115 (2016) (" House I ") and, for this reason, overruled her first two arguments. By order entered on 28 September 2017 ("Remand Order"), our Supreme ......
-
In re House
...sterilized on 27 November 1974. This matter was first decided by this Court on 16 February 2016. In re House , ––– N.C. App. ––––, 782 S.E.2d 115 (2016) (" House I ").1 We held in House I that Claimant could not demonstrate that she was a qualified recipient of the Eugenics Asexualization a......