Relevant Personal Injury Case Law

Earlier this month, the Rhode Island Supreme Court decided an interesting case that may factor into how other states handle loss-of-consortium claims brought by parents against the medical professional they claim was responsible for their child’s preventable birth injury. In the case, Ho-Rath v. Rhode Island Hospital, the plaintiffs were the parents of a child born with a debilitating genetic birth defect.

The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants (several doctors and other medical professionals at the hospital where the mother was treated) were negligent in their treatment. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that it was negligent for them not to test the child, prior to her birth, for the genetic disorder that was known to be a possibility, given the family’s history with the disease. The case was brought when their child was 12 years old.

The parents sought compensation on behalf of their minor daughter, but also in their own capacity, seeking compensation for their loss of consortium. A loss of consortium claim seeks compensation for the loss in the enjoyment of another’s company, in this case, the couple’s child.

Earlier this month, an appellate court affirmed the dismissal of a case brought by two accident victims based on the fact that they did not raise an “issue of fact” as it pertained to proximate cause. The court determined that the plaintiffs failed to show that there was sufficient evidence that the defendant’s negligent acts were the cause-in-fact of their injuries.

The Facts of the Case

In the case, Piltch v. Ford Motor Company, the Piltches were seriously injured when their 2006 Mercury Mountaineer hit a patch of black ice, slid off the road, and crashed into a nearby wall. None of the cars’ airbags deployed during the accident. The Piltches filed suit against the manufacturer of the vehicle, claiming that under state law the vehicle was defective. They argued that they should be compensated for their injuries because the fact that the airbags did not deploy resulted in them sustaining more serious injuries than they would have had the airbags worked properly.

However, at trial the Piltches failed to present any “causation” evidence from an expert, meaning that they were relying solely on circumstantial evidence that the fact that the airbags didn’t deploy worsened their injuries.

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