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Friday December 22, 2006
Insurance Compensation for Alberta Girl Injured in the Womb called a “Landmark”
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By Hilary White
RAINBOW LAKE, December 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A family from Rainbow Lake Alberta has reached an out-of-court settlement with their insurance company that the CBC is calling a “landmark” case. In December 2000, Lisa Rewega, while pregnant with her daughter Brooklyn, suffered severe injuries in a car accident.
The CBC reports that Brooklyn now requires 24 hour a day care after she was born severely brain damaged and blind, with cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
The decision followed the 2005 passage of an Alberta provincial law allowing children who suffer injuries in the womb can sue their mothers for damages. Lisa Rewega was ruled to have been at fault in the accident, which opened the door for the family to pursue insurance compensation to cover the costs of Brooklyn’s care.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s 1999 decision that children do not have the right to sue for damages incurred in utero, allowed a loophole that said provinces were allowed to pass legislation allowing it but only in cases of car accidents.
Critics of the law said that it could lead to encroachments on the rights of women and leave them open to be sued for other activities while pregnant like alcohol or drug consumption. The provincial NDP charged that the law was a case of the Alberta Tories catering to “social conservatives’” desire to uphold the rights of the unborn.
The Rewega family’s lawyer, Rosanna Saccomani, declined to disclose details of the agreement, but told the CBC that the family would now have the funds to cover Brooklyn’s care expenses.
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