This morning the Oregon state Supreme Court battled oral arguments in Eugene, at the UO law school. I was invited to attend by a friend. So I took up the opportunity. Some quite interesting cases. Two cases actually. One pressing the idea of the legitimacy of a warrant regarding some future activity, the other Regarding the culpability and ensuing damages of a doctor accused of negligence in a situation where the patient was misdiagnosed and died.
Facts and circumstances determine all cases. However the case where the personal representative of the deceased was arguing essentially for malpractice, was interesting.
The basis of the case was common law. Several cases were referred to as president. Oregon State Supreme Court acknowledged something called a “loss of chance” a number of years ago. In the closing arguments, several implications came to mind. The first being that there seems to be an assumption among the lawyers that the opposite of death is life. This doesn’t seem to always be true. While both conditions are mutually exclusive. Life is related to vibrance and how well one lives is certainly on a gradient scale. So is the opposite of death life? There seem to be quite a bit of concern around this in the oral arguments.
Another question is the duty of care, in an abortion situation, to whom is the duty of care? Is it to the mother, the baby, or the father? Who has the right to be the deceased’s PR? One of the critical arguments in the case was the assumption that the duty of care assumes life. Certainly this is not always true? But is it relevant? A service result ends in death in an abortion. It also ends in death with doctor assisted suicide, which is legal in Oregon.
