Professional Negligence Law Reporter

The Rhode Island Supreme Court held that health care providers and others owed no duty to a child born with physical defects. Jean Ho-Rath underwent genetic testing and was told she and her first child tested positive for alpha thalassemia. During her second pregnancy, Ho-Rath was counseled that her baby had a chance of having hemoglobin H disease if he carried a certain gene mutation. At approximately 16 months, Ho-Rath’s second child, Yendee, was diagnosed as having Hemoglobin H Constant Spring Disease.

When she reached the age of majority, Yendee sued a hospital, multiple health care providers, and others, alleging negligence. Ho-Rath and her husband also filed derivative loss of consortium claims. The defendants moved for summary judgment. Granting the motion, the hearing justice determined that the defendants owed no duty to Yendee as a matter of law.

Affirming, the court noted that a majority of jurisdictions have concluded that children who are born with physical defects allegedly resulting from the failure to warn of potential genetic defects are not entitled to recovery. Here, the court said, the plaintiff did not have a doctor-patient relationship with the defendants because she was not born until five years after the genetic testing at issue.

Additionally, the court found that the plaintiff was allegedly harmed by her birth, not the genetic testing, although the court acknowledged that a life, even if severely impaired, is not an injury in the legal sense. Finally, the court said that the defendants did not direct or control Yendee’s conception, her parents did.

Thus, the court concluded that in Rhode Island, there is no duty owed to a child born with physical defects who alleges that because of a defendant’s negligence, his or her parents decided to conceive or were deprived of information that would have led them to terminate the pregnancy.

Citation: Ho-Rath v. Corning Inc., 275 A.3d 100 (R.I. 2022).