## Facts

- Robert M. Shaheen consulted Dr. John E. Knight to obtain sterilization so he and his wife would have no more children.
- Shaheen alleged an agreement in which Knight promised a specific result: to make Shaheen sterile.
- Knight performed a vasectomy on September 16, 1954.
- Shaheen and his wife continued marital relations after the operation.
- Shaheen’s wife gave birth to a fifth child on February 11, 1956.
- Shaheen’s complaint asserted a contract theory and expressly did not plead negligence, malpractice, or lack of medical skill.
- Shaheen alleged the procedure was not required by any health risk to his wife, and was sought for family-size and financial reasons.
- Shaheen sought damages equal to the future expenses of supporting, educating, and maintaining the child, despite alleging love and affection for the child.

## Issues

1. Whether an agreement for a physician to perform voluntary sterilization on a competent adult is void as against public policy or public morals.
2. Whether a physician may incur contractual liability for failure to achieve an expressly promised result (sterility) independent of negligence.
3. Whether the costs of raising a healthy child conceived after an unsuccessful sterilization procedure are legally recoverable damages.

## Decision

- The court addressed the complaint on the defendant’s preliminary objections (demurrer-style challenge to legal sufficiency).
- The court held that a voluntary sterilization agreement was not void per se as against public policy or public morals.
- The court sustained the preliminary objections because the only damages sought—the expenses of raising a healthy child—were not recoverable as a matter of law and public policy.
- As pleaded, the action could not proceed because it did not allege negligence and did not assert any legally cognizable injury beyond the financial incidents of the child’s birth.

## Legal Principles

- Public policy does not automatically invalidate a voluntary sterilization contract between physician and patient.
- Although physicians generally do not impliedly warrant cures, an express undertaking for a specific result may be pleaded as a contract claim in appropriate circumstances.
- The birth of a normal, healthy child is not treated as a compensable legal injury for which a parent may recover the anticipated costs of child-rearing.
- Courts may deny expectancy-style damages in contract when the requested measure of damages is barred by public policy.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that a patient and physician may enter an enforceable agreement for voluntary sterilization, but it rejected as non-compensable the claimed damages consisting of the future costs of raising a healthy child conceived after an unsuccessful vasectomy, and therefore sustained preliminary objections to the complaint as pleaded.


Shaheen v. Knight, 11 Pa. D. & C.2d 41 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. 1957)