Superior Court Upends 'Anachronism' Prejudicing Injured Children
On Nov. 5, 2013, we wrote an article published in The Legal Intelligencer, titled "A Common-Law Anachronism Impacting Injured Minors," about a little-known and hopelessly outdated common-law rule that often prohibits catastrophically injured children from recovering medical expenses from otherwise liable defendants in personal injury cases.
November 02, 2015 at 07:00 PM
6 minute read
On Nov. 5, 2013, we wrote an article published in The Legal Intelligencer, titled “A Common-Law Anachronism Impacting Injured Minors,” about a little-known and hopelessly outdated common-law rule that often prohibits catastrophically injured children from recovering medical expenses from otherwise liable defendants in personal injury cases.
For the better part of a century, Pennsylvania continued to cling to and enforce an antiquated and unfair rule that treated minor children as merely “property interests” of their parents for purposes of recovering medical expenses. In short, the doctrine prohibited minor children from recouping medical expenses and costs incurred before their 18th birthday from otherwise negligent tortfeasors.
The intent of our previous article was to highlight the inequity of this rule and suggest that Pennsylvania's appellate courts or the legislature should eliminate it altogether. A few months ago, the Pennsylvania Superior Court did just that.
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