In a ground-breaking judgment, a woman from the United Kingdom has won a lawsuit against her mother's doctor for 'wrongful conception'. Star showjumper Evie Toombes sued her mother's doctor to court for allowing her to give birth to the child and won millions in damages.
The 20-year-old Evie Toombes who took Dr Philip Mitchell to court over his failure to properly advise her mother while she was pregnant is born with spina bifida which means a spinal defect where she sometimes spends 24 hours a day connected to tubes, a media quoted her as saying.
The girl claims that if Dr Mitchell had told her mother she needed to take folic acid supplements to minimise the risk of spina bifida affecting her baby, she would have put off getting pregnant and Evie Toombes would never have been born in the first place.
While ruling in her favour, the judge acknowledged that had Evie's mother been provided with the correct recommended advice, she would have delayed attempts to conceive. "In the circumstances, there would have been a later conception, which would have resulted in a normal healthy child," the judge pronounced.
Evie Toombes' lawyers have said that the exact sum in damages has not been calculated, but would likely be a big number as it would need to cover the cost of her lifelong care needs. Evie is a showjumper and has competed against both disabled and able-bodied riders.
