Can I sue for wrongful birth on a tuballigation that was quoted by a different doctor saying " It looks like you never had one?

September 29, 2017

Question

I found out I was pregnant in 2015 when I was told and signed a document giving the doctor permission to tie my tubes in 2009 .... When I went to the hospital for stomach pain I was told I was pregnant. I explained to her that my tubes we're tied and she gave me an ultrasound and told me it looked like my tubes we're never tied..... But from the sloppy work from previous c-sections my scar tissue had grown from my incision to my chest cavity. So my question is, is there a difference between suing for a removal and/or suing for misleading information which led to a wrongful birth? And can I sue in my case?

Answer

Not clear what you mean by "suing for a removal"...um, do you mean a termination of the pregnancy? If your only damages from a failed tubal ligation in 2009 are a pregnancy termination six years later, you are barred by the statute of limitations. If you had a tubal ligation in 2009 that was not done properly, became pregnant in 2015, and went on to deliver a healthy child, you would also have no case, and for a different reason. There is no action for 'wrongful life' in NY. (Wrongful birth is different - the child has to be born disabled because of medical error in vitro). Your question doesn't specify what happened after 2015.

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