I'm sorry, you what?

[electricland]

Mothers could be sued for injuring fetuses: Alberta bill

Alberta's justice minister says he will be introducing legislation allowing children injured in car accidents while still in the womb to sue their mothers.

...

The legislation stems from a case involving a severely disabled four-year-old girl, Brooklyn Rewega. Her father Doug wants to sue his wife, Brooklyn's mother, in order to get money from the insurance company to cover the care of their daughter. The Rewegas are still married.

That is fucked up. Oh, and a very, very bad and stupid idea.

Comments

[raithen.livejournal.com]

oh. dear. God. and you KNOW where certain groups will take this one....

*sigh*

[briasoleil.livejournal.com]

I hate my government. I hate King Ralph. I hate social conservatism. I hate Alberta. *headdesk*

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

yes, but unlike here, you will probably be able to defeat this stupid idea.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

ah, maybe. Hopefully. Except, as Bria notes above, this is Alberta. Land of the redneck, home of the narrow minded.

Also, place of way more ice and snow than is healthy, but that is not terribly relevant....

[ramaxela.livejournal.com]

That was the Grand Final topic at the '04 Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate National Tournament.

It was roundly despised.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. Terrible idea. Jeez.

Especially the part where he wants to sue his wife to get money from the *insurance company* - isn't that kind of, well, fraudulent? Or at least unethical?

[freerider.livejournal.com]

It's common practice in the adversarial system, and has been roundly found no to be fraudulent- insurance policies are considered merely an aspect of the assets of the party, thats why they have liability insurance and liability insurances sole purpose. It's the entire idea of liability insurance that creates this problem, but I'm not really sure that I've heard a good alternative. After all, even uninflated and well-deserved damages can be large sums, and not everybody has such a sum, and this syetm makes sure both plaintiff and defendant are granted at least some protection. Albiet, protection at the expense of society, which is a huge problem.

But, yeah, its everyday legal practcie in Cananda across the board from doctors to lawyers to fishing trawlers. If the legal argument was sound, the source of the money would also be sound.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Ah. I should know better than to make random assumptions about the Canadian legal system. :) Thanks for the explanation! Since there's a solid grounding in law for the suit, I suspect ethics value judgments are less relevant, too.

(US insurance law seems to preclude suing one's spouse in order to claim from a joint insurance policy, at least to date.)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

It does seem weird to me. And it sounds like it seemed weird to the Supreme Court, too. I guess we'll see what happens...

[freerider.livejournal.com]

Obviously, there is a lot of wierd in regards the actual merits of the case. Beyond that, though, as I understand the insurance issue, is:
a) The effect of the marriage, and the presumptions re assets this raises in law. This is a big one.
b) The shift in some of the Canadian judiciary about the overall detrimental effects of the universality of liability insurance. Chances are this won't get mentioned explicitly, but bet bottom dollar the advocates of change'll have it in mind when drafting their judgement.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Not sure I see what the marriage has to do with it. As I understand it someone will be attempting to sue on behalf of the child, which I think is a terrible idea.

[freerider.livejournal.com]

Sorta. It's a wrongful birth case, as I understand it, which could be done by either parents or on behalf of the child. Wrongful bitch cases have historically been limited to doctors duty of care, and even then, have been extremely frowned upon for all sorts of compelling legal reasons. Actually, I wrote an essay on wrongful birth in my lj years ago, I might see if I can dig it up.

The marriage is important for estatiary reasons, and those apply to one parent suing another parent on the behalf of the childs estate. And you can see how that would get messy.

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

Wait... what new definition of "accident" am I missing here??

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Got me.

It's very sad and everything, but I am not sure this is the way to go.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

And people think this legal fiction will survive? Gimme a break!

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

[freerider.livejournal.com]

Pish. Lawyers have their fair share of sins and social evils, but this is them serving exactly as they should- forming tolerably legally consistant modes of expression of the wishes of the client to create a representation for them within the legal model. The problem here is the people being legally represented, and their paticular desires. Hate the purpose, not the mode.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

But don't lawyers, if they're acting ethically, have a duty to try to discourage clients from filing frivolous lawsuits? Or is that only on "Boston Legal" and the like?

[freerider.livejournal.com]

They do, but frivolous doesn't mean what David Kelly seems to think it means. I don't know what the exact Canadian provisions are, but over my way in the other post-Collonial system with dudes in wigs, lawyers are obliged to explain chances of success to the client, and seperately to inform clients if they have a frivilous case (as an example of the high standard for frivilous, it'd include me suing you for personal injury for saying "Kill all the lawyers", but not anything like this, however whack this may be).

Basically, if the law is as unclear as Canadian Wrongful Birth suits, then it can't objectively be said to be frivilous, and thus the lawyer has a duty to perform for their client.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

They do, but frivolous doesn't mean what David Kelly seems to think it means.

Interesting - I know that TV shows are first and foremost about entertaining the audience, but I wonder how much he bends the law in the pursuit of ratings.

Doesn't matter that much - I still enjoy the show for the wacky characters. ;)

I don't know what the exact Canadian provisions are, but over my way in the other post-Collonial system with dudes in wigs, lawyers are obliged to explain chances of success to the client, and seperately to inform clients if they have a frivilous case

Okay, that's what I was curious about. It seemed unethical to me for a lawyer to take money from a client when he knew there was no merit to the case.

(as an example of the high standard for frivilous, it'd include me suing you for personal injury for saying "Kill all the lawyers", but not anything like this, however whack this may be).

Well, you'd have to sue Shakespeare. I was just quoting. ;)

Basically, if the law is as unclear as Canadian Wrongful Birth suits, then it can't objectively be said to be frivilous, and thus the lawyer has a duty to perform for their client.

I guess you know that a law is unclear when people are arguing about what it means...