Renslow v. Mennonite Hospital

367 N.E.2d 1250 (1977)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In October of 1965, when P's mother was 13 years of age, Ds, on two occasions, negligently transfused her mother with 500 cubic centimeters of Rh-positive blood. The mother's Rh-negative blood was incompatible with and was sensitized by, the Rh-positive blood. The mother had no knowledge of an adverse reaction from the transfusions and did not know she had been improperly transfused or that her blood had been sensitized. In December 1973 she first discovered her condition when a routine blood screening was ordered by her physician in the course of prenatal care. Ds discovered they had administered the incompatible blood, but at no time notified her mother or the mother's family. The mother's condition allegedly caused prenatal damage to P's hemolitic processes, which put her life in jeopardy and necessitated her induced premature birth. Plaintiff was born jaundiced and suffering from hyperbilirubinemia. She required an immediate, complete exchange transfusion of her blood and another such transfusion shortly thereafter. As a result, P suffers from permanent damage to various organs, her brain, and her nervous system. P sued Ds and the trial court dismissed the action. It held that P was not 'at the time of the alleged infliction of the injury conceived.' An appeal the court reversed holding that there was no showing 'that the defendants could not reasonably have foreseen that the teenage girl would later marry and bear a child and that the child would be injured as the result of the improper blood transfusion.' Liability is not barred because the allegedly wrongful conduct occurred long before the resultant injury [when] duty and causation can be established. Ds appealed.