# Renslow v. Mennonite Hospital

> Illinois Supreme Court · August 8, 1977 · 67 Ill. 2d 348

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9540249

## Case

- **Full name:** EMMA M. RENSLOW, Indiv. and as Mother and Next Friend of Leah Ann Renslow, a Minor, Appellee, v. MENNONITE HOSPITAL Et Al., Appellants
- **Court:** Illinois Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 8, 1977
- **Citations:** 67 Ill. 2d 348; 10 Ill. Dec. 484; 367 N.E.2d 1250; 91 A.L.R. 3d 291; 1977 Ill. LEXIS 328
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Ward
- **Judges:** Mr. Justice Moran Mr. Justice Goldenhersh Mr. Justice Clark
- **Cited by:** 151 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9540249

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding re-suiting injury to daughter actionable where hospital negligently transfused blood in woman years earlier, noting that the “time gap between the wrongful act and the suffering is immaterial;] [t]he cause of action is uniformly created not at the time of the negligent…
- recognizing independent duty of care to fetus not yet conceived at time physician negligently caused mother's blood to become RH sensitized, noting "there is a right to be born free from prenatal injuries foreseeably caused by a breach of duty to the child's mother"
- recognizing a “right to be born free from prenatal injuries foreseeably caused by a breach of duty to the child’s mother,” where child was born impaired due to a negligent transfusion of Rh-positive blood to the mother several years prior to conception
- recognizing a cause of action on behalf of a child who suffered severe prenatal injuries as a result of defendants' negligent administration of an Rh-positive blood transfusion to her Rh-negative mother nine years prior to the child's conception
- recognizing a claim for relief where defendants negligently transfused the plaintiff’s mother with RH-positive blood, causing sensitization of the mother, nine years prior to the birth of the plaintiff

## Opinion text

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARD, dissenting:
I agree with Mr. Justice Underwood’s observations.
The holding that a person not in being at the time of a defendant’s claimed negligence has a cause of action obviously creates conceptual difficulties, as well as concrete problems, such as how to measure the insurance risk and the possible exposure of a defendant to claims by successive generations of plaintiffs who complain of genetic injury. To say that, when difficult cases hereafter arise, the judiciary will draw “rational distinctions, consonant with current perceptions of justice” is to me simply a placebo.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9540249. Public record. Not legal advice.