interestedcitizen Anonymous

Negligence is more than just the duty to exercise ordinary care. It is the failure to exercise ordinary care to whom one has a duty. Since a dead body is not a person, does one have a duty of care toward a dead body? If there is a legal duty toward a dead body to exercise ordinary care, it has to be defined by statute or in the Common Law. If it is not defined in the Common Law or by statute, there is no legal duty of care. If there is a legal duty toward the dead body, how do the people who otherwise would have been parents obtain the right to recover damages suffered by a dead body? Parents are only entitled to recover damages for the wrongful death of a child born alive because a statute gives them that right, but nothing gives those parents a right to recover damages for a child born dead, if the actions of the person seeking recovery didn't cause the death of the dead infant. In the past, parents of infants born dead, but injured in the uterus, couldn't recover damages against against persons who negligently inflicted fatal injuries to the child ultimately born dead. So, how could those parents have greater rights to recover damages for damages to a dead body than they would have to recover damages against a person who causes damages to a pregnant woman resulting in a child born dead?

Is a child born dead property? Is it more like a puppy? If it is property, equivalent to a dead puppy, should a person have any greater duty toward that property, merely because it is human? If a person accidently causes the disfigurement of a dead puppy who dies in a roadway acceident, should the person who accidentally causes that disfigurement be required to respond in damages to the owner of the puppy?

Further, what are the measure of damages. A child once alive,but killed by someone's negligence has a right to recover for pain, suffering, future earnings, etc., but if the child was never alive and never had any potential to suffer pain and mental anguish due to someone else's negligence, how can we measure damages?

Do we look to bystander recovery for a theory of damages? Bystander recovery is usually limited to those who observe the horror of a person killed, but when they are not even present when a dead body is mutilated and only osbserve the affer effects of an accidental mutilation that occurred in the past, how can they claim to be bystanders?

7 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )