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Barnes v. Vettraino3/25/2003
UNPUBLISHED
This matter is before the Court on order of the Supreme Court to consider, as on leave granted, a trial court order denying defendants' motion for summary disposition. We affirm.
Plaintiff Sharon Barnes learned she was pregnant in the spring of 1998. She saw defendant Roth for prenatal care, and he gave her a February 25, 1999 due date. He also recommended an amniocentesis because plaintiff Sharon Barnes was thirty-six years old. Due to delays caused by medical complications, as well as defendants' alleged negligence in diagnosing and reporting the test results, plaintiffs did not learn that the baby would have various birth defects until November 1998. Plaintiffs elected to have the fetus aborted, but had to travel out of state for the procedure, which was marked by complications. Plaintiffs filed this action for damages.
Defendants moved to dismiss under MCR 2.116(C)(8), asserting that this Court's ruling in Taylor v Kurapati, 236 Mich App 315; 600 NW2d 670 (1999), which abolished a cause of action for wrongful birth, effectively eliminated any cause of action based on the negligent diagnosis and reporting of test results affecting abortion decisions. The trial court disagreed, finding that the fact that plaintiffs were not seeking damages for the life of an unwanted child was a sufficient basis on which to distinguish Taylor. Thus, the trial court denied defendants' motion for summary disposition.
We denied defendants' request for leave. However, as noted above, our Supreme Court remanded the matter to us for consideration as on leave granted.
Generally, we review de novo a trial court's ruling on a motion for summary disposition. Beaudrie v Henderson, 465 Mich 124, 129; 631 NW2d 308 (2001). The Beaudrie Court added:
A motion for summary disposition brought under MCR 2.116(C)(8) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint on the basis of the pleadings alone. The purpose of such a motion is to determine whether the plaintiff has stated a claim upon which relief can be granted. The motion should be granted if no factual development could possibly justify recovery. [Id. at 129-130.]
"All well-pleaded facts are accepted as true and are construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Madejski v Kotmar Ltd, 246 Mich App 441, 444; 633 NW2d 429 (2001).
The general rule in Michigan is that a plaintiff may recover civil damages for medical malpractice, assuming, of course, that the plaintiff satisfies his or her evidentiary burdens. MCL 600.2912a. Thus, a plaintiff may recover by proving that a medical professional's treatment deviated from a recognized standard of care and proximately caused a compensable injury. MCL 600.2912a.
In Taylor, we narrowed the scope of compensable injuries by abolishing the so-called "wrongful birth" cause of action. Taylor, supra at 355-356. We noted the difficulty in determining a proper damages award in a wrongful birth case:
This rule invites the jury in wrongful birth cases to weigh the costs to the parents of a disabled child of bearing and raising that child against the benefits to the parents of the life of that child. This rule thus asks the jury to quantify the unquantifiable with respect to the benefits side of the equation. Further, to posit a specific question: how does a jury measure the benefits to the parents of the whole life of the disabled child, when the potential of that child is unknown at the time of suit? How, for example, would a hypothetical Grecian jury, operating under Michigan jurisprudence, measure the benefits to the parents of the whole life of Homer, the blind singer of songs who created the Ilia
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