Wrongful birth

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: the doctor/patient relationship the parties to the relationship the legal framework of the doctor/patient relationship. Part 2 Medical law - the general part: consent medical malpractice medical records and confidence. Part 3 Medical law in action: contraception facilitating conception abortion pre-natal injury and actions for wrongful life and wrongful birth research selective treatment of neonates donation and transplants of human tissue and fluids the living donor - liability in tort - agreements to donate the dead donor. Part 3 The end of life: treatment of the dying and treatment for dying death.

Abstract: Individuals with disabilities have made signiacant strides toward integration and acceptance in American society in the last afty years. Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in 1990 and comparable state laws represented for many the arst public acknowledgement that discrimination against people with disabilities is immoral and intolerable even when committed by private individuals. More than at any other time in American history, the enactment of the ADA inspired genuine hope that people with disabilities could participate equally and be welcomed in all aspects of American life. Demands for true integration and acceptance replaced those for mere tolerance, and the goal looked to be achievable. Some scholars have concluded that the ADA and similar legislation was brought about in part by the transformation of the disabled community from a group of disparate individuals to a collective body insistent on civil rights for the whole. The excitement and optimism that existed in the wake of the ADA’s passage has since diminished. Relatively few individuals with disabilities have met with success in the legal arena under the ADA, and societal atti-

Abstract: This article identifies and discusses the three principal limitations on the extent of legal responsibility for tortiously caused harm and explains and justifies them by reference to the principle of interactive justice, which holds one legally responsible for causing (or being imminently about to cause) harm to another's person or property as a result of conduct that is inconsistent with others' right to equal freedom. The three principal limitations prevent liability for a tortiously caused harm when (1) the harm almost certainly would have occurred anyway in the absence of any tortious conduct or condition (the "no worse off" limitation), (2) there was a superseding cause of the harm (an actual cause of the harm that (i) intervened between the defendant's tortious conduct and the plaintiff's injury, (ii) was a necessary ("but for") cause of the plaintiff's injury, and (iii) was highly unexpected), or (3) the harm did not occur as part of the realization and playing out of one of the foreseeable risks that made the person's conduct tortious, before the hazards created by the realization of that risk had dissipated (the "risk playout" limitation). None of the three limitations match the usual academic prescription for limiting the extent of legal responsibility for tortiously caused harm, which would rely solely on a harm-matches-the-risk ("harm-risked") limitation that is often confused with, but which differs significantly from, the risk-playout limitation. However, as this article demonstrates, the results reached by the courts are consistent with the three stated limitations rather than the harm-risked limitation, despite the longstanding efforts of the academic drafters of the Restatements to install the harm-risked limitation as the sole, comprehensive limitation on the extent of legal responsibility for tortiously caused harm. These three limitations are neither exclusive nor absolute. Some of them do not apply or apply less broadly to some intentional torts and some strict liability actions. Moreover, there are other limitations on the extent of legal responsibility, such as the de-minimis-contribution limitation, as well as limitations on legal responsibility for certain types of losses - such as pure emotional distress, pure economic loss, and wrongful birth - that are more appropriately handled as categorical limitations on the scope of a person's duty rather than as limitations on the extent of legal responsibility for tortiously caused harm.