Hegyes v. Unjian Enterprises
FACTS
-The plaintiff was in a motor vehicle accident with the defendant's employee. As a result of the accident she was fitted with a lumbo-peritoneal shut and claims that, in order to avoid future injury, she was forced into a cesarean section (C-section) 51 days premature of the time the child should have been ejected onto this fair planet.
-She, the plaintiff, also alleges that the personal injuries she sustained were a proximate result of the defendant's negligence.
ISSUE
Does a negligent motorist owe a legal duty of care to the subsequently conceived child of a woman who is injured in an automobile accident?
HOLDING-No.
RULES
-People are required to use ordinary care for the protection of those whom harm can be reasonably foreseen.
-The court’s task in determining the duty is to evaluate “whether the category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm experienced” such that liability may appropriately be imposed upon the negligent party.
-Applying that standard to the aforementioned “special relationship” cases where a duty was found to exist, the birth of a handicapped child was arguably a “likely result” of the Def.’s professionally negligent conduct.
-In this case, Def.’s conduct was not “likely to result in Pl.’s conception or birth, let alone her alleged injuries nearly three years after the car accident..
[Palsgraf Rule]: Negligence must be a matter of some relation between the parties, some duty, which could be founded only on the foreseeability of some harm to the Pl. in fact injured.
-Line drawn at foreseeability.
APPLICATION
-The law does not give compensation for all injuries
-A motorist cannot reasonably foresee that his/her negligent conduct might injure a child subsequently conceived by a woman several years after.
CONCLUSION
-Recognition of such a cause of action would “be an unwarranted extension of a duty of care.”
FACTS
-The plaintiff was in a motor vehicle accident with the defendant's employee. As a result of the accident she was fitted with a lumbo-peritoneal shut and claims that, in order to avoid future injury, she was forced into a cesarean section (C-section) 51 days premature of the time the child should have been ejected onto this fair planet.
-She, the plaintiff, also alleges that the personal injuries she sustained were a proximate result of the defendant's negligence.
ISSUE
Does a negligent motorist owe a legal duty of care to the subsequently conceived child of a woman who is injured in an automobile accident?
HOLDING-No.
RULES
-People are required to use ordinary care for the protection of those whom harm can be reasonably foreseen.
-The court’s task in determining the duty is to evaluate “whether the category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm experienced” such that liability may appropriately be imposed upon the negligent party.
-Applying that standard to the aforementioned “special relationship” cases where a duty was found to exist, the birth of a handicapped child was arguably a “likely result” of the Def.’s professionally negligent conduct.
-In this case, Def.’s conduct was not “likely to result in Pl.’s conception or birth, let alone her alleged injuries nearly three years after the car accident..
[Palsgraf Rule]: Negligence must be a matter of some relation between the parties, some duty, which could be founded only on the foreseeability of some harm to the Pl. in fact injured.
-Line drawn at foreseeability.
APPLICATION
-The law does not give compensation for all injuries
-A motorist cannot reasonably foresee that his/her negligent conduct might injure a child subsequently conceived by a woman several years after.
CONCLUSION
-Recognition of such a cause of action would “be an unwarranted extension of a duty of care.”
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