Business Law Case Brief

Statement of Facts: On 8 May 2015 David Smith drove his car through a red light. Afterwards, he then plowed into Ms. John Doe’s car, mangling it beyond repair. Fortunately, Ms. Doe escaped with minor scratches and bruises, even though she was seven and one-half months pregnant. Four days later she delivered a stillborn infant. The operating physicians concluded the unborn baby had died from injuries sustained in the accident. Ms. Doe had seen Dr. Horace Mann at her regularly scheduled check-up approximately two weeks before the accident. His records show Ms. Doe was in good health and the child’s condition was “normal” for one conceived about seven months earlier. Dr. Mann thinks the baby was probably capable of a separate existence outside the womb.
Question Presented: Is the Defendant liable to the plaintiff for the tort of wrongful death of the plaintiff’s child when the defendant negligently operated his vehicle and struck his vehicle onto the plaintiff resulting in the death of her child even though the child was a fetus at the time of the accident.
Conclusion: The plaintiff’s motion to recover damages for the wrongful death of her child would be denied. Under case 370 Md. 227, 804 A.2d 1151 in a similar suit as to the one we are doing the plaintiff was not able to recover for the loss of her child as a result of a car
While a tragic loss of life we will have an extremely hard time proving that our client’s death of her child was a direct result of the accident if she did not go to the hospital right after the accident. Anything within those four days could have happened during the pregnancy that the defendant could argue was not a result of the car accident. In addition the operating physicians are not under legal authority to say that definitely that the fetus could was stillborn as a cause of injuries resulting from the