Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
In March 2017, the Singapore Court of Appeal awarded damages for a previously unarticulated tort – the ‘loss of genetic affinity’. In the case before the Court, a husband and wife underwent in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, and subsequently delivered a baby girl (Baby P). Several months after the birth of Baby P, the parents noticed that the child’s skin tone and hair color were quite different from their own and that of their son, who had also been conceived using IVF. After a brief investigation, the couple learned that the clinic had inadvertently fertilized the mother’s extracted ovum with sperm from a man other than her husband. The couple brought suit for breach of contract and negligence, seeking ‘upkeep’ damages equivalent to the cost of raising Baby P until Baby P is ‘financially self reliant’.  While the court declined to award the full amount of damages sought, it ultimately entered judgment for 30 percent of the requested amount on the grounds that the couple’s ‘loss of genetic affinity’ with Baby P constituted actual, compensable harm … (more)

Tracey Tomlinson, ‘Negligent Disruption of Genetic Planning: Carving Out A New Tort Theory to Address Novel Questions Of Liability in an Era of Reproductive Innovation’, Fordham Law Review volume 87, 113 (2019).

First posted 2019-03-08 13:43:11