Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The justices, without comment, left standing a ruling that requires Fairfax Hospital in suburban Washington to provide emergency respiratory help to a permanently unconscious young girl.
At issue was the scope of a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. It prevents hospitals from ``dumping'' patients unable to pay - refusing to provide emergency care or transferring them before their emergency conditions are stabilized.
The girl, identified in court documents as Baby K, was born at the hospital Oct. 13, 1992, with anencephaly. She is missing part of her brain, skull and scalp. The child has no ability to think, perceive or interact with her environment in any way, and never will be able to do so.
Most anencephalic infants die within days of birth. Doctors planned to provide only supportive care - nutrition, water and warmth - and permit ``the tragic condition to take its natural course.''
But Baby K's mother, identified in court documents as Ms. H, demanded that doctors use ``aggressive measures'' such as a ventilator to help the infant breathe.
Baby K repeatedly has experienced respiratory failure, requiring mechanical ventilation. Since late 1992, she has lived in a nursing home near the hospital but has been returned for respiratory help four times.
Hospital officials went to court, seeking to resolve what level of care they are obligated to provide Baby K.
A federal judge, upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the emergency-care law requires the hospital to provide the treatment requested by Baby K's mother.
In the appeal acted on Monday, lawyers for Fairfax Hospital said the appeals court ruling means ``whenever a family member of a dying patient wants `everything to be done' and `not to stop,' it will have to be done as a matter of federal law.''
Although the appeal repeatedly referred to Baby K as ``dying,'' lawyers for her mother said the infant has grown and gained weight since her birth. Her heart rate and other vital functions are normal, they said.
The court's first day back from its three-month summer recess created the usual mountain of paperwork - the justices issued orders in more than 1,600 cases.
But it was a flurry signifying little for the future of American law, because the court did not accept one new case for review.
Justice Stephen Breyer took an active role in his first full day on the high court bench Monday. He asked detailed questions in two of the three cases in which arguments were heard.
But Breyer disqualified himself from 16 cases in which the court denied review. A court spokeswoman said the justice's action was sparked either by financial interests he has or had, or because he had participated in the cases as a member of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In other matters, the court:
Refused to revive author Dan Moldea's $10 million lawsuit against The New York Times for a negative review his book received.
Let stand a Pennsylvania law banning ``wrongful birth'' lawsuits against doctors accused of withholding evidence that a pregnant woman's fetus may be abnormal. The law was challenged as an undue burden on the right to abortion.
Set aside a New Jersey court's ruling that had barred anti-abortion pickets from getting within 300 feet of the home of a doctor who performs abortions.
Refused to hear a Justice Department appeal from a ruling that said government lawyers committed fraud in winning John Demjanjuk's 1986 extradition to Israel as a Nazi war criminal.
by CNB