Alabama case in which state Supreme Court held frozen embryos are "children" for purposes of wrongful death settles and is dismissed

 The lawsuit that led to a highly-publicized Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos in a lab count as “minor children,” was dismissed Wednesday after plaintiffs settled their wrongful death claims against the in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic and Mobile hospital.  Go here for the full story. 

This result is important for the parties, of course, but the more important part of the story was the ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court back in February.  You can read my posts on that decision here, here and here.

More commentary on the Alabama decision on wrongful death of frozen embryos

 A few days ago I posted my comments on the Alabama case deciding a plaintiff could support a claim under the state's wrongful death act based on the destruction of frozen embryos.  See here.

If you have been following the news, you know the case has attracted a lot of attention and I have not been able to keep up with all of it, but I will post a few stories, and let you google (now a verb) the rest.

Frozen Embryos Now Considered Children: Unpacking the Alabama Supreme Court Decision and the Future of Fertility Care  (Lex Blog)

The massive legal fallout from Alabama’s IVF ruling is just the beginning (MSNBC)

Uncertainty looms after Alabama's IVF court ruling (NPR Audio)

Two more clinics in Alabama pausing IVF treatments after court ruling (Politico)

IVF Threatened by Unprecedented Alabama Decision (Bloomberg Law podcast)

My eldest daughter was born through IVF. Here’s what ‘pro-life’ conservatives don’t understand (MSNBC)

Alabama’s IVF Ruling Is Christian Theology Masquerading as Law (The Nation)

The science of IVF: What to know about Alabama's 'extrauterine children' ruling (NPR Audio)

What the Alabama IVF ruling means for parents going through IVF (NPR Audio)

The Alabama Ruling That Could Stop Families From Having Kid (NY Times Audio)

More on the consequences of the Alabama case holding that embryos are "children" for purposes of a wrongful death case

 Yesterday I posted a comment about a recent case in Alabama holding that plaintiffs had a valid cause of action for wrongful death based on the accidental destruction of frozen embryos.  I updated that post soon after I posted it, so if you read it immediately after it was picked up in your news aggregator you may want to go back to read it again because I added a quote from an article by someone else that had some good analysis.

The other part of the equation is the discussion of the possible consequences of the decision for issues outside of the litigation and outside of tort law in general.  That discussion picked up quite a bit today in the news.  Some of those consequences are already coming true:  The University of Alabama has terminated providing IVF care!  The University Hospital is a huge public facility so this decision will affect a lot of patients.  The hospital said they would continue to extract eggs, but they would not fertilize them.

 Here are a few links to articles on the subject.  

The Guardian: "Alabama’s supreme court ruled embryos are ‘extrauterine children’. IVF patients are worried"

MSNBC: Alabama’s embryos ruling is a terrifying preview of another Trump presidency [this link lead to a page that has a video on top; the video is not related to the story; read the article below the video]

NPR (3 minute audio): Alabama's largest hospital says it is halting IVF treatments in wake of court ruling

The Guardian: Alabama university pauses IVF care after frozen embryos deemed ‘children’

Politico: Major Alabama hospital stops IVF treatment after court rules embryos are children

NPR (3 minute audio): University of Alabama in Birmingham pauses IVF procedures due to embryo ruling

The Hill: Alabama hospitals halt IVF after ruling

The Hill:  How Alabama’s frozen embryo decision is shaking the nation: What you need to know

Politico: ‘Another hot potato’: Alabama’s IVF ruling risks political, legal backlash

Alex Wagner Tonight (video segment)

Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are ‘children’ for purposes of the state's wrongful death statutes -- UPDATED

As you probably have heard by now, the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that a group of in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients could sue for wrongful death because their frozen embryos were destroyed while in the defendant's facility.  

The decision has gathered a lot of attention (see links below) and it does have significant consequences, but there are a couple of things that the coverage is not mentioning.  First, the decision is not unprecedented and, in Alabama's case, it is not that surprising since the state's supreme court had already decided (years ago) to recognize a wrongful death claim for the death of a fetus.

Typically, wrongful death statutes state the circumstances under which survivors of "a person" who dies because of someone's negligence can recover.  And, typically, that language ("a person") is subject to interpretation.  Some statutes provide a definition, while in other states courts have had to interpret the meaning of the words or to decipher the intent of the legislature. 

On the issue of who should be considered a person, jurisdictions fall into one of three categories:  (1) those that define a person as someone who is born alive (which requires evidence of a live birth before the death for which the wrongful death suit is brought; (2) those who consider life to begin at conception (Illinois uses this approach in its statute) and (3) those who "compromise" by holding that "personhood" starts at the point of "viability" (usually defined as the point in time when the fetus could survive independently of the mother).

Back in 2011 or 2012, Alabama decided a case adopting the view that life begins at conception.  In that case, the court held that it would be an "unfair and arbitrary endeavor to draw a line that allows recovery on behalf of a fetus injured before viability that dies after achieving viability but that prevents recovery on behalf of a fetus injured that, as a result of those injuries, does not survive to viability."  I wrote about that case here.  Alabama then reaffirmed its decision in 2017.  

And Alabama is not alone in considering this question.  I do not remember how these cases were ultimately decided but I know the question was litigated in  Nebraska.  Also, in 2013 trial court in Colorado dismissed a wrongful death claim for the death of a fetus, and the state's supreme court denied review.   (the links are to my posts at the time the cases were reported).

I wrote a short comment on the issue back in 2015 here and again in 2021 here.

One can say that once the court took the position that there is a right to a wrongful death claim for the death of an unviable fetus, the view of the court is that life begins at conception.  But then the question becomes what constitutes "conception"?  And that is where the question of the distinction between a fetus, a fertilized egg, a frozen embryo and an implanted embryo becomes important.  I have not seen commentary about that, other than in a short article here.  This is the only comment I have seen that makes the important distinction between cases that involve recognizing a cause of action for the wrongful death of a fetus and the recent case related to an frozen embryo:

Embryos don’t just automatically turn into kids. IVF families can go through multiple implants in an effort to get a child. And for this reason, clinics try to successfully fertilize a number of eggs in case of failure. That creates a bunch of embryos that won’t end up being implanted and that probably wouldn’t result in a child even if they were. Without the freedom to get rid of those cells after the fact, IVF is an untenable industry.

This case, by itself, doesn’t get that far. Families who consent to ending the process aren’t going to sue. But the court didn’t limit itself to giving the plaintiffs a cause of action, and instead went on a tear laying the groundwork to expand the state’s criminal laws to not only shut down IVF, but to greenlight the next prosecutor who wants to charge women with murder for having a miscarriage.

You can read the Alabama Court's opinion here.  To read more commentary about the decision, you can go to the links below. 

The Hill

Why the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on embryos matters

NPR (4 minute audio)

Politico

NPR

Courthouse News Service

Court in Alabama holds suicide is not a superseding cause

In many other jurisdictions, a decedent's conduct in committing suicide is considered a superseding cause, presumably based on the notion that it is always unforeseeable that someone would commit suicide. 

But we all know that this statement is simply not true.  Depending on the circumstances, whether someone might commit suicide is as foreseeable as any other intervening event.  And, for that reason, it is not convincing to hold as a matter of law that suicide is always unforeseeable.  Yet, that is what many courts do.

I am writing about this today because I just read in Courthouse News that an appeals court in Alabama recently ruled that a man accused of sexually assaulting a college student who later killed herself can be sued for wrongful death, finding that suicide arising from an alleged sexual assault does not “absolve the alleged assailant of liability.”

The case is Rondini v. Bunn and you can read the decision here.

Alabama Supreme Court to decide whether suicide is a superseding cause

Long time readers of this blog know that I have posted many stories on issues related to claims of injuries related to suicide; and one of the most common issues is the question of whether someone's decision to commit suicide should be considered to be a superseding cause that eliminates the possible cause of action against a defendant whose alleged conduct resulted in the suicide.  I recently wrote about this here (discussing Arizona law) and here (Tennessee law).

The issue is now back in the news because a federal court in Alabama recently ruled that a tort case brought by the parents of a woman who killed herself against the man she said sexually assaulted her should be stayed pending the Alabama Supreme Court’s answer of whether suicide is an intervening cause that breaks the chain of causation stemming from a defendant’s intentional tort.  The court's decision is available here.

For all my posts related to suicide cases, go here and scroll down.