Becker v. Schwartz, 46 N.Y.2d 401 (1978)

A physician’s negligence in failing to diagnose a fetus with a genetic disease does not create a cause of action for the parents’ emotional distress resulting from the child’s birth and subsequent suffering.

Summary

The plaintiffs, parents of a child born with Tay-Sachs disease, sued the defendant doctor for negligence, alleging he failed to take a proper genealogical history or properly evaluate it, which would have revealed their heightened risk of having a child with the disease. They claimed that had they been informed of the risk and the availability of testing, they would have aborted the pregnancy. The court held that the parents could not recover for their emotional distress, reasoning that extending liability in this case would create artificial and unmanageable boundaries. The court emphasized the need to limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree, even in the face of genuine suffering.

Facts

The plaintiffs, both Eastern European Jews, consulted the defendant doctor. The doctor failed to take a proper genealogical history or to properly evaluate it. The parents subsequently gave birth to a daughter with Tay-Sachs disease, a degenerative genetic disorder. The parents claimed they would have undergone testing and aborted the pregnancy had the doctor properly advised them of the risk and the availability of tests.

Procedural History

The plaintiffs sued, alleging the doctor’s negligence caused them mental distress. The defendant moved to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action. Special Term denied the motion. The Appellate Division reversed, dismissing the complaint.

Issue(s)

Whether parents can recover from a doctor for the mental distress and emotional disturbances they suffered as a result of their infant daughter having been born with and eventually succumbing to Tay-Sachs disease, where the doctor was allegedly negligent in failing to diagnose the risk of the disease in utero.

Holding

No, because extending liability to the parents in this situation would require an unmanageable extension of traditional tort concepts, leading to arbitrary and artificial boundaries in the law.

Court’s Reasoning

The court acknowledged the parents’ suffering but emphasized the need to limit the scope of liability. It noted that while the law seeks to provide redress for injuries caused by negligence, it cannot provide relief for every injury suffered. The court distinguished this case from situations where direct physical or emotional injury results from negligence. Here, the parents suffered emotional distress from witnessing their child’s suffering, not from a direct injury to themselves caused by the doctor’s negligence.

The court cited Tobin v. Grossman, 24 N.Y.2d 609 (1969), which denied recovery to a mother traumatized by injuries suffered by her child due to another’s negligence. The court reasoned that extending liability to the parents would create artificial boundaries. For example, the dissent would allow the mother to recover while denying recovery to the father. “The law of liability should not turn on hypertechnical and fortuitous considerations of this type.”

The court recognized the difficulty in drawing a line if recovery were allowed in this case. “Every injury has ramifying consequences, like the ripplings of the waters, without end. The problem for the law is to limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree” (quoting Tobin v. Grossman, 24 N.Y.2d 609, 619 (1969)).