Wrongful life claims are lawsuits brought on behalf of a child born with a severe disability, arguing that a healthcare provider’s negligence — usually a missed prenatal diagnosis or faulty genetic counseling — deprived the parents of information they would have used to avoid the pregnancy or birth. Only three states clearly recognize the claim: California, Washington, and New Jersey. Where it is allowed, the child can recover the extraordinary medical and care costs their condition will impose over a lifetime, but not damages for pain, suffering, or the burden of existence itself.
Where the Claim Is Recognized
The geography matters more than any other factor. A child with the same condition and the same missed diagnosis has a case in one state and no case at all a border away.
California was the first. In Turpin v. Sortini (1982), the state Supreme Court allowed a child born deaf after a misdiagnosis to recover special damages for extraordinary medical and care expenses, reasoning that it would be illogical to allow parents but not the child to recover the costs of the child’s own care.
Washington followed in Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc. (1983), permitting children born with fetal hydantoin syndrome to recover extraordinary expenses incurred during their lifetimes. The court specified that if parents already recovered care costs for the child’s minority through a wrongful birth action, the child’s recovery would be limited to costs incurred during adulthood.1Justia. Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc.
New Jersey came next in Procanik v. Cillo (1984), allowing a child born with congenital rubella syndrome to recover extraordinary medical expenses. The court grounded its reasoning not in any claim that nonexistence is preferable, but in “the needs of the living.”2Justia. Procanik by Procanik v. Cillo, 97 N.J. 339
States That Prohibit the Claim
At least nine states have statutes on the books that bar wrongful life suits: Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Utah. The statutes vary. Some also prohibit the parents’ wrongful birth claim; others target only the child’s cause of action. In these states, a child born with a genetic condition after a missed diagnosis has no direct remedy under a wrongful life theory.
Many other states have rejected the claim through court decisions, holding that life with impairments is not a legally cognizable injury. That leaves roughly forty states where wrongful life is either explicitly banned or has never been recognized.
How This Differs From a Wrongful Birth Claim
If you are a parent reading this, the claim you may actually be able to file is a wrongful birth claim, not a wrongful life claim. The two arise from identical facts but belong to different plaintiffs.
A wrongful birth claim is yours. You argue that the provider’s negligence denied you the information needed to make an informed reproductive decision, and you seek compensation for your own emotional distress and the financial burden of raising a child with serious medical needs. Wrongful birth claims are recognized in a majority of states.
A wrongful life claim belongs to the child. The child’s argument is harder: that the provider’s negligence caused them to be born into a life of suffering, and that nonexistence would have been preferable. Because courts find that comparison nearly impossible to evaluate, the claim is recognized in far fewer places and permits a narrower set of damages. Where the law allows it, both claims can be filed together, though the same medical expenses cannot be recovered twice.
Who Files the Lawsuit
The plaintiff is the child, but because the child is a minor, a parent or court-appointed guardian brings the action on the child’s behalf. This distinction matters for what happens to any settlement or verdict. Funds recovered belong to the child, not the parents, and are typically placed in a trust or structured settlement administered for the child’s benefit into adulthood.
The complaint has to be drafted to show the child’s independent injury: the extraordinary burden of living with a condition that competent medical care would have let the parents avoid passing on. That framing is what keeps the wrongful life claim legally distinct from the wrongful birth claim parents may file alongside it.
What You Have to Prove
A wrongful life case rests on two pillars: a breach of the medical standard of care, and causation that reaches all the way back to whether the child would have been born at all.
The Negligence
The question is what a reasonably competent provider would have done. The clearest cases involve a provider who failed to offer or perform testing that medical guidelines call for. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends that cell-free DNA screening for common chromosomal conditions like trisomies 21, 18, and 13 be routinely available to all pregnant patients, not just those with elevated risk factors.3ACOG. Screening for Fetal Chromosomal Abnormalities A provider who ignores that recommendation and fails to inform a patient about available screening has deviated from accepted practice.
Negligence also arises when a provider fails to recommend diagnostic procedures like amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling after screening suggests elevated risk. A positive screening result is a flag, not a diagnosis. Providers who treat it as the final word, or who fail to explain the difference between screening and diagnostic accuracy, can leave patients with false assurances that form the basis of a claim.
Laboratories and genetic counselors face similar exposure. A lab that misinterprets a sample or reports a result without flagging its known limitations may be contributing to a diagnostic failure. A counselor who gives an incorrect risk assessment, overlooks a family history pointing to a heritable condition, or fails to explain the limits of a particular test can be sued on the same theory.
The Causation Problem
This is where cases get hard. The plaintiff must show that the child would not have been born at all if the provider had met the standard of care. In practice, that means proving either that the parents would have terminated the pregnancy if they had received accurate information, or that they would not have conceived in the first place. California’s jury instructions put it exactly this way: the plaintiff must establish that, had the parents known of the genetic impairment, the mother would not have conceived or would not have carried the pregnancy to term.4Justia. CACI No. 513 – Wrongful Life – Essential Factual Elements
That element turns on the subjective testimony of the parents about a hypothetical decision they never actually had to make. Credibility is everything. If the evidence suggests the parents would have continued the pregnancy regardless — because of religious convictions, prior statements, or the way they handled an earlier pregnancy — the causal chain breaks. The defense will probe every piece of evidence that undermines the claim.
Behind that evidentiary problem sits a philosophical one. The child’s alleged injury is existence itself, and courts that reject wrongful life claims often point to the impossibility of comparing an impaired life to nonexistence. Even the jurisdictions that allow the claim refuse to make that comparison directly, grounding recovery instead in the concrete care needs of a living child.
What Damages Are Available
Every state that recognizes wrongful life limits recovery to special damages: the extraordinary costs directly attributable to the child’s condition that go beyond the ordinary expenses of raising a healthy child. General damages for pain and suffering, emotional distress, or diminished quality of life are universally denied, even in states that allow the claim.
Lifetime Medical and Care Costs
Special damages cover projected lifetime costs of specialized medical treatment, rehabilitative therapy, custom educational programs, assistive equipment, home modifications, and specialized nursing or attendant care. These numbers are built through expert testimony drawing on actuarial data for life expectancy, medical inflation, and the specific needs created by the condition. The goal is lifelong resources, not just coverage through childhood.
That lifetime scope is important. In Harbeson, the Washington Supreme Court held that if parents recovered care costs for the child’s minority through a wrongful birth action, the child could still recover the costs expected during adulthood through the wrongful life claim.1Justia. Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc. The reasoning is that the burden of lifelong care should fall on the negligent provider rather than on the child, the parents, or public assistance.
Why Pain and Suffering Is Off the Table
The bar on general damages is not a technicality. As the California Supreme Court explained in Turpin, courts cannot determine in any rational fashion whether a plaintiff has actually suffered an injury by being born with impairments rather than not being born at all, and even if that hurdle could be cleared, assessing general damages in a non-speculative way would still be impossible. Every state that recognizes the claim has followed that reasoning.
Protecting the Settlement With a Special Needs Trust
A wrongful life recovery deposited in the child’s name can immediately disqualify them from Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and other means-tested public benefits that many children with severe disabilities rely on. The solution is a first-party special needs trust established under federal law. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(A), a trust holding the assets of a person under age 65 who meets the disability criteria is not counted as a resource for benefit eligibility, as long as the statutory requirements are met.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries, and Transfers of Assets
The trust can be established by a parent, grandparent, legal guardian, the individual themselves, or a court. Distributions paid directly from the trust for the beneficiary’s medical care or support services generally are not counted as income. There is a catch: when the beneficiary dies, any funds remaining in the trust must reimburse the state for the total Medicaid benefits paid on the beneficiary’s behalf during their lifetime. A pooled trust managed by a nonprofit works similarly, investing multiple beneficiaries’ funds together while keeping separate accounts.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries, and Transfers of Assets
The structure has to be in place at the time of settlement. An attorney who handles the malpractice case well but overlooks the benefits implications can inadvertently cost the child more in lost public assistance than the recovery is worth. Families should work with counsel experienced in both medical malpractice and special needs planning.
Filing Deadlines and the Affidavit of Merit
Medical malpractice statutes of limitations vary widely by state. Most jurisdictions provide some tolling for minors, meaning the clock is paused or extended while the plaintiff is underage. In some states the limitations period does not begin until the child reaches the age of majority; in others, the tolling is more limited and the deadline may arrive while the child is still young. A separate statute of repose may set an absolute outer limit regardless of when the injury was discovered or when the child turns eighteen.
The discovery rule can also affect timing. Where it applies, the clock does not start until the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known about the injury and its link to the provider’s negligence. For genetic conditions that are not immediately apparent at birth, this can meaningfully extend the window.
About twenty-eight states also require the plaintiff to file a certificate or affidavit of merit before the case can proceed. The document typically requires the plaintiff’s attorney to certify that a qualified medical expert has reviewed the case and believes there are reasonable grounds to allege a breach of the standard of care that caused the injury.6National Conference of State Legislatures. Medical Liability/Malpractice Merit Affidavits and Expert Witnesses Getting that review usually costs several thousand dollars and has to happen before the complaint is filed, which filters out weak cases but also creates a financial hurdle for families already under strain.
How Abortion Restrictions Affect the Case
Causation in wrongful life and wrongful birth cases has always depended on parents being able to show they would have terminated the pregnancy with proper information. After the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, several states enacted near-total bans. In those states, a plaintiff’s claim that “I would have terminated” may be met with the response that termination was not legally available, potentially destroying the causal link.
For wrongful life specifically, the practical fallout appears limited so far. The three states that recognize the claim — California, Washington, and New Jersey — all maintain strong abortion protections. Wrongful birth claims, which exist in a majority of states, have been hit harder. Where abortion is now prohibited even in cases of serious fetal anomaly, plaintiffs may struggle to prove that the provider’s negligence caused the injury, because the parents could not have legally acted on the information even if they had received it.
The law here is still shifting. Some scholars argue that even in states with bans, the negligence still deprived parents of meaningful choice, including the ability to prepare financially and emotionally, seek specialized prenatal care, or travel to a state where termination remained available. Whether courts accept those alternative theories of injury has yet to be settled. For now, which state you live in determines whether a wrongful life or wrongful birth claim is viable at all.