Smith v. Gore, 13 April 1987

After undergoing a failed tubal ligation and giving birth to a healthy child, the plaintiff brought a wrongful pregnancy suit against physicians, a university hospital, and a manufacturer of a sterilization technique seeking damages for emotional distress, loss of income, expenses of rearing a child to the age of majority, and punitive damages. The Supreme Court of Tennessee held that all damages were recoverable except those for the expenses of rearing the child. It ruled that the costs of rearing a normal, healthy child lay with the parents under both statutory and common law. It also held that there was no duty to mitigate damages by having an abortion or placing the child for adoption. In 1987 the Supreme Courts of Kansas and Oklahoma also rejected claims for the expenses of raising a healthy child whose birth resulted from a failed sterilization. (Johnston v. Elkins, 1 May 1987 [736 P.2d 935]; Morris v. Sanchez, 10 November 1987, corrected 17 November 1987 [746 P.2d 184]). In making its ruling, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma also held that there was no duty to mitigate damages in such a case. In addition, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division, held that a woman who became pregnant after being sterilized could not recover because she did not show that, had she been informed that there was a 1 percent chance of the sterilization failing, she would not have chosen to be sterilized anyway (Marshall v. University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics, 29 December 1987 [520 N.E.2d 740]).