Baby Miller case decided by Texas Supreme Court

One year, five months, and twenty-seven days after oral argument, the Texas Supreme Court decided the Baby Miller case today. The court, whose ranks were depleted by retirements, voted 7-0 to affirm the Court of Appeals in an opinion written by retiring Justice Craig Enoch. A few quick thoughts:

1. This is a devastating loss for the family, which has a lifetime of expensive nursing and medical care to pay for. With post-judgment interest, the judgment for the family had to have been worth over $100 million by now. The Court of Appeals reversed and rendered a take-nothing judgment, and today the Supreme Court said, "that's right."

2. The major damage done by the Court of Appeals to the Natural Death Act (now the Advance Directives Act) was technically left alone by the Supreme Court. It affirmed on other state-law grounds and said it didn't need to reach the NDA/ADA issue. But the court offered some dicta that ought to make it clear the court thought the Court of Appeals blew it, which it did (big time). So my major hope for the opinion -- that the NDA/ADA would be restored to its natural meaning -- was half-way realized.

3. The court also side-stepped the Baby Doe issue in the case. It describes the Baby Doe rule as an appropriations/funding rule, which is satisfied by the fact that Texas has CPS policies and procedures in place to respond to reports of failure to provide medically indicated treatment to infants. Period. It does not seem interested in reading Baby Doe as establishing a standard of care, at least unless CPS has been called into a case, which it was not in this case, so as far as the court is concerned: no big deal. But in any event, the court said "this is a state-law, not federal-law, case so we won't technically decide the Baby Doe issue." This is okay with me (even though I think Baby Doe does implicate state law and does establish a standard of care as a matter of state law). Anything the court could have said about Baby Doe (other than what it did say) could only have made a bad rule worse.

The really disquieting part of the decision is its reliance on the 1920 Moss case (link requires Westlaw subscription).

First of all, it's an opinion by the Texas Commission of Appeals of the Texas Supreme Court, not the Supreme Court itself; this is an oddity of Texas judicial history that makes the precedent potentially not as strong as it might otherwise be.

Second, and following from the first, the Supreme Court (in 1920) "approved the judgment in the case," which is generally regarded as weakening the precedential value of an opinion. If the court adopted the opinion of the commission, the precedential value would be higher.

Third, the holding of Moss is this: A surgeon was liable for performing surgery on a minor without the consent of the patient's parents because although "there was an absolute necessity for a prompt operation, [surgery was] not emergent in the sense that death would likely result immediately upon failure to perform it. In fact, it is not contended that any real danger would have resulted to the child had time been taken to consult the parent with reference to the operation. Therefore the operation was not justified upon the ground that an emergency existed."

Amazingly (in light of the Miller court's use of Moss), the Moss opinion ends with this: "The law wisely reposes in the parent the care and custody of the minor child, and neither a physician nor those in temporary custody of the child will be permitted, in a case of this character, to determine those matters touching its welfare." So the Miller supreme court is "guide[d]" (the court's term) to affirm the court of appeals decision against the parents on the basis of an opinion from 1920 of dubious precedential value containing a ringing endorsement of parents' prerogatives to give or withhold consent and setting a very high standard for an exception (more than "an absolute necessity for a prompt" intervention, there must be an emergency "in the sense that death would likely result immediately upon failure to perform the [intervention]." Curious.

Fourth, in Moss, the surgeon relied in good faith on the apparently valid consent of the child's aunt. He had no reason to suspect there was a lack of consent. In Miller, there was every reason to know there was no valid consent. Moss looks like a case that stands for the simple proposition that we will presume consent in a true emergency as long as there's no reason to believe consent has not or would not be given. But of what relevance is that rule to the Miller case?

Fifth, assume that Moss is good law. Does it really support this result? After all, the hospital seems to have had just about the entire day either to get the parents' consent or to get a court order to override the parents' refusal, and it did neither. I don't think Moss really says this is alright.

Curiouser and curiouser.