On Oct. 21, 2025, in SanMiguel v. Grimaldi, the New York Court of Appeals reaffirmed a well settled rule of tort law that limits recovery of purely emotional damages in prenatal injury cases. On behalf of the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), Greenberg Traurig (GT) submitted an amicus brief in the matter, urging the Court to reach that exact result.
Underlying Facts
The plaintiff birth mother in this case was admitted to the defendant hospital after she did not go into labor by her due date. The co-defendant doctor, together with hospital nursing staff, induced labor and attempted to deliver plaintiff’s child by vacuum extraction, without success. The doctor thereafter performed an emergency C-section, ultimately delivering plaintiff’s child alive but in serious condition. The child died eight days later, leading plaintiff to file an action that alleged claims for medical malpractice and lack of informed consent on her behalf and on behalf of her son’s estate.
Lower Court Decisions
Following submission of summary judgment motions, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, dismissed the plaintiff’s claims for medical malpractice on her behalf, citing the Court of Appeals’ two-decade old decision in Sheppard-Mobley v. King, 4 N.Y.3d 627 (2005). There, the Court of Appeals limited a mother’s ability to recover for emotional damages under a medical malpractice theory, absent independent physical injury, where her infant child is born alive but with injuries caused by a doctor’s alleged negligence. In the present case, however, the lower court declined to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim for lack of informed consent on her behalf under the same decision, finding a remaining triable issue of material fact.
On the defendants’ appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, by a divided vote, affirmed the trial court’s decision, holding that Sheppard-Mobley did not bar plaintiff mother’s claim for emotional harm arising from her lack of informed consent claim because a claim for lack of informed consent “is separate and distinct from general allegations of medical negligence.” See 229 A.D.3d 152 (1st Dep’t 2024). The Appellate Division took what the Court of Appeals later described as a “novel premise” to find that plaintiff mother’s lack of informed consent was not barred by New York law. Alternatively, the Appellate Division invited the Court of Appeals to revisit its Sheppard-Mobley decision, stating that the precedent limiting a mother’s ability to recover absent independent physical injury when her child is born alive but in serious condition “is . . . unjust, as well as opposed to experience and logic” and that its “continued application [would] be repugnant to common-sense justice.” Id. at 160, 163-64.
Court of Appeals Decision
By a 4-3 vote, the Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division’s decision and re-affirmed Sheppard-Mobley, holding that its decision in that case, limiting a mother’s recovery for purely emotional damages when her infant is born alive but with injuries caused by a doctor’s alleged negligence, applies equally to a claim for lack of informed consent as it does to a claim for medical malpractice. The Court noted that “there is no legal or logical reason to treat lack of informed consent claims differently from traditional medical malpractice claims” and that the Appellate Division ignored the broader context of the general rule in New York for barring recovery for purely emotional damages in holding that such claims are distinguishable.
The Court also evaluated whether anything decisive has changed since its decision in Sheppard-Mobley that would cause the Court to revisit that precedent. Concluding that it had not, the Court observed that Sheppard-Mobley remains “logical and fits comfortably within New York’s tort jurisprudence disfavoring recovery for purely emotional injuries.”
GT’s Participation in the Case
GT submitted an amicus brief to the Court of Appeals on behalf of GNYHA and HANYS (Amici), the principal trade associations for hospitals and health systems in New York. In the brief, Amici argued that expanding tort liability here, by permitting a mother to recover for purely emotional damages where she has no independent physical injury and her child was born alive, would be detrimental to New York’s hospitals and other health systems. Amici argued that stare decisis compelled reversal, and also explained how an expansion of tort liability in this area would have a significant, negative financial impact on hospitals, many of which are already struggling financially, by, among other things, increasing medical liability costs. New York hospitals already suffer from some of the worst financial conditions anywhere in the county. In turn, Amici argued that the increased medical liability costs would threaten access to obstetrical and gynecological services, which are already challenging to maintain, putting patient access to critical medical services at risk — particularly in impoverished areas, where many pregnancies are already considered high risk.