## Facts

- Dwight and Kathleen Phillips sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act for negligent medical care at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina.
- Their son, William Randall (“Randy”) Phillips, was born with Down syndrome and a congenital cardiac defect.
- In an earlier liability trial, the court found negligent (1) failure to advise, counsel, and test the parents regarding the risk of Down syndrome in light of Mrs. Phillips’s family history, and (2) failure to timely diagnose and treat Randy’s cardiac condition after birth.
- The child’s “wrongful life” claim had previously been dismissed, while the parents’ “wrongful birth” claim proceeded and resulted in a liability finding.
- This decision resolved only damages, based on testimony about Randy’s lifelong needs (special education, permanent supervision, medical care) and the parents’ emotional and physical effects and projected lifetime costs reduced to present value.

## Issues

1. What categories of damages are recoverable under South Carolina law (applied through the FTCA) for the parents in a wrongful-birth action arising from negligent genetic counseling/testing?
2. What damages, if any, may the child recover given rejection of a wrongful-life theory but proof of postnatal malpractice regarding his cardiac condition?
3. How should damages be limited by proximate causation, including exclusion of ordinary child-rearing costs and losses not attributable to the proven negligence?

## Decision

- The court awarded the parents damages for extraordinary, disability-related expenses (medical, educational, and related care) proximately caused by the negligent failure to provide appropriate genetic counseling and testing.
- The court also awarded the parents damages for emotional distress and mental anguish resulting from the foreseeable burdens associated with raising a severely disabled child under the circumstances caused by the negligence.
- The court denied recovery based on a theory that the child’s existence itself constituted a compensable injury.
- The court awarded the child damages on a conventional medical-malpractice basis for injuries and losses attributable to negligent failure to diagnose and treat his cardiac disorder, separate from limitations attributable solely to Down syndrome.
- The court quantified future economic losses using present-value methods and entered specific monetary awards for the recoverable components.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FTCA, the United States’ liability and damages are determined by the substantive tort law of the state where the negligence occurred, treating the government as a private person under like circumstances.
- A parental wrongful-birth claim may support recovery for extraordinary expenses resulting from a child’s disabilities, while ordinary costs of raising a child are not recoverable.
- Courts may permit parental recovery for emotional distress and mental anguish when such harms are a foreseeable result of malpractice that deprived parents of informed reproductive choice.
- A child generally may not recover on a wrongful-life theory requiring comparison of impaired life to nonexistence, but may recover for distinct, postnatal malpractice injuries under standard negligence principles.
- Damages must be tied to proximate causation: parents’ damages must flow from the failure to counsel/test, and the child’s damages must be limited to harms caused by negligent cardiac diagnosis/treatment rather than congenital conditions alone.

## Conclusion

The court, applying South Carolina law through the FTCA, awarded the parents wrongful-birth damages limited to extraordinary disability-related expenses and emotional distress, rejected damages premised on the child’s mere existence, and separately compensated the child only for provable injuries caused by negligent postnatal cardiac care.


Phillips v. United States, 575 F. Supp. 1309 (D.S.C. 1983)