VIDEO FAQs

What if an unborn child dies?

The law in New York is restrictive when it comes to the rights of unborn children so that the child who is deceased before being born will not be able to recover anything. Obviously, they’re deceased, but they have no dependents, so no one can recover for them, because New York does not allow for grief damages, so there’s nothing in terms of pecuniary loss for the unborn child. However, the mother of the unborn child is allowed to recover for the emotional distress if that loss was occasioned by the negligence of someone, either in an auto accident or negligence in medical care, so New York law does allow the mother to recover for that loss. That’s sort of an exception to the general rule that there are no grief damages recoverable in New York, and the mother can recover that.