Hummel v. Reiss: The New Jersey Supreme Court Takes a Step Backward in Its Recognition of Wrongful Life
![handle is hein.journals/rutlr46 and id is 545 raw text is: New Jersey Developments
Hummel v. Reiss: The New Jersey Supreme Court
Takes a Step Backward in its Recognition of
Wrongful Life
Tara A. Barrett*
I. INTRODUCTION
In Hummel v. Reiss' the New Jersey Supreme Court held
that a child born before the United States Supreme Court's.
decision in Roe v. Wade2 cannot recover damages in an action
for wrongful life.' The court maintained that the availability of
* J.D. Candidate, 1994, Rutgers School of Law-Newark. The author
would like to thank Professor Dorothy Roberts, Anne Amann, and
Thomas P. Cole for their comments and suggestions, and Richard A.
West, Jr. and Tracy A. Sayegh for their encouragement.
1. 608 A.2d 1341 (N.J. 1992).
2. 410 U.S. 113 (1973), limited by Webster v. Reproductive Health
Servs., 492 U.S. 490 (1989), and modified, Planned Parenthood of South-
eastern Pa. v. Casey, 112 S. Ct. 2791 (1992).
3. A wrongful life claim [r]efers to [a] type of medical malpractice
claim brought on behalf of a child born with birth defects, alleging that
the child would not have been born but for negligent advice to, or treat-
ment of, the parents. BLACK'S LAW DIcTIoNARY 1613 (6th. ed. 1990).
Currently, only three states, including New Jersey, recognize wrongful
life. See Turpin v. Sortini, 643 P.2d 954 (Cal. 1982); Procanik v. Cillo,
478 A.2d 755 (N.J. 1984); Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc., 656 P.2d 483
(Wash. 1983). Wrongful life has also been used to refer to actions
where normal children seek damages for being unwanted or illegitimate
or where the child claims that a contraceptive failed. Martin B.
Morrissey, Comment, Wrongful Life Actions in the 1990's: The Continuing
Need to Define and Measure a Plaintiffs Injury, 23 TUL. L. REv. 157,
159 (1991). This Comment will use the first definition of wrongful life.
A related type of claim, wrongful birth, includes the same allega-
tions as a wrongful life claim, except it is brought by the parents of the
handicapped child. BLACK'S, supra, at 1612. Most states recognize the
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Hummel v. Reiss: The New Jersey Supreme Court Takes a Step Backward in Its Recognition of Wrongful Life
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