Disposition of Stillborn Fetus: Court Disallows Lawsuit for Emotional Distress
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
May 1998
Quick Summary: No one abused the fetus. The hospital preserved it in formalin in a plastic container on a shelf in the morgue.
This was nonchalant and insensitive, but it was not extreme, outrageous, atrocious or uncivilized, so there was no right to sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress. COURT OF APPEALS OF TEXAS, 1997.
After the mother delivered a stillborn fetus, her nurse told her because of its weight and length it had to be buried. The hospital’s policy was that any stillborn fetus more than 500 grams or more than twenty weeks gestational age was to be buried.When the mother contacted the pathologist four days later he said she could designate a funeral home to recover the remains or give permission for the hospital to dispose of the remains in a respectful manner. She chose the latter, believing the hospital had a special place to bury babies in or near the hospital chapel.
The parents learned three months later the fetus was still in the morgue, apparently because no one at the hospital knew what to do. The parents arranged for a funeral and burial, then sued the hospital.
The Court of Appeals of Texas did not condone what happened. At the same time the court ruled the hospital’s actions, although improper, were not outrageous or indecent. Thus there were no grounds for the parents to file a lawsuit against the hospital seeking monetary damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Angeles v. Medical Center, 960 S.W. 2d 854 (Tex. App., 1997).