Virginia Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice Blog

Virginia Supreme Court Rules Against Parents in "Wrongful Birth" Case

The Virginia Supreme Court has reversed a $4,000,000 verdict awarded by a Fairfax Circuit Court jury several years ago in a case involving "wrongful birth."

Julie and Joseph Granata had alleged that Jan Paul Fruiterman, M.D. and Eleni Solos-Kountouris, M.D. had failed to advise them about the availability of chorionic villus sampling (CVS) which would likely have disclosed that the Granata's twins were afflicted with Down syndrome. The Granata's alleged that had the testing been offered and performed, they would have known about the Down syndrome and terminated both pregnancies.

The Supreme Court ruled however, that there was no evidence in this case that had CVS testing been done that it would have been positive (and required no further testing by amniocentesis, which Mrs. Granata had testified she did not want).

The Supreme Court also ruled that Mr. Granata was not a "patient" of the doctors. A jury had previously awarded Mr. Granata $500,000 in addition to the $4,000,000 verdict.