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Torts Keyed to Duncan
Plowman v. Fort Madison Community Hospital
Citation:
896 N.W.2d 393 (Iowa 2017)Facts
Twenty-two weeks into her pregnancy, Pamela Plowman (plaintiff) underwent an ultrasound at the Fort Madison Community Hospital. The ultrasound revealed abnormalities in the baby’s development and recommended further testing, but the plaintiff was not told nor were further tests done. The plaintiff’s baby was born and later diagnosed with small corpus callosum and suffered from cerebral palsy, microcephaly, intellectual disability, cortical visual impairment, and seizure disorder. The plaintiff and her husband sued the hospital and doctors (defendants) for wrongful birth, arguing that they had negligently failed to accurately interpret, diagnose, monitor, respond to, and communicate the fetal abnormalities seen in the ultrasound and that the plaintiffs would have terminated the pregnancy if they had known. The plaintiffs sought damages for the cost of case, mental anguish, and loss of income. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment.
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