The Minnesota Urology Building is shown (KMST).
The unprecedented “wrongful conception” case of a Minnesota couple suing over a botched vasectomy is set for trial in Hennepin County Monday.
According to a medical malpractice lawsuit filed in Minnesota state court, Steven Szlachtowski had a vasectomy performed at Minnesota Urology in Edina in December 2018. At the time, Szlachtowski and his wife, Megan Szlachtowski, were 38 and 33 years old, respectively, and were the parents of three children, aged 4, 3, and 8 months.
The following May, Steven Szlachtowski went for standard post-vasectomy testing and a nurse named Jennifer Whelchel informed him that the testing was negative, and that it was “ok to discontinue contraceptives.”
However, in March 2023, Megan Szlachtowski learned that she was 15 weeks pregnant. The couple now says that as a result of the unplanned pregnancy they have suffered emotional distress and substantial costs in excess of $50,000. Unless the parties reach a settlement before trial, a jury will decide whether the medical practice is liable and if so, the amount of damages to which the family is entitled.
The family initially sought $6 million in punitive damages, but Judge Bridget Sullivan ruled that they were not permitted to amend their complaint to add the punitive damages demand, because there was not enough evidence that any errors on the part of the nurse or the hospital rose to the level of “deliberate disregard.”
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In their filing, the Szlachtowskis said that Whelchel had been struggling to perform her role as a triage nurse, had been habitually late or absent from work, and sometimes showed up smelling of alcohol. According to the plaintiffs, Whelchel complained that her job “wore her down and caused her to get sick with colds and the flu and to have anxiety,” and that she had been known to make multiple errors such as scanning information to an incorrect patient chart and incorrectly refilling prescriptions.
Whelchel died in 2022, prior to Megan Szlachtowski’s pregnancy.
Sullivan ruled that there was no evidence that the defendant, Minnesota Urology, had any knowledge of an impairment to or limitation on Whelchel’s capacity to perform her job, and no knowledge of any pattern of errors. Therefore, Sullivan said, there was not enough evidence that the defendant demonstrated the deliberate disregarded necessary to support a punitive damages claim.
The Szlachtowskis are seeking compensatory damages, and plan to present an economics expert at trial to testify about the cost of raising a child.
Minnesota is one of a handful of states that allow medical malpractice claims for wrongful conception. A 1977 Minnesota Supreme Court case dealt directly with the legal and moral difficulties posed by a claim for a healthy child born after a failed sterilization procedure. In that case, Sherlock v. Stillwater Clinic, the state’s top court ruled that in cases of wrongful conception, courts must balance the joy of having a child against the cost required to raise one — and whose existence the parents tried to prevent.
Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Walter Rogosheske said that it is “troublesome’ to allow recovery of costs for raising a normal, healthy child. On the other hand, Rogosheske said, “it must be recognized that such costs are a direct financial injury to the parents.”
“Although public sentiment may recognize that to the vast majority of parents the long-term and enduring benefits of parenthood outweigh the economic costs of rearing a healthy child, it would seem myopic to declare today that those benefits exceed the costs as a matter of law,” the judge wrote.
Further, Rogosheske wrote nearly five decades ago, the widespread use of birth control by millions of Americans “demonstrates an acceptance of the family-planning concept as an integral aspect of the modern marital relationship.”
Rogosheske said his ruling was “at best a mortal attempt to do justice in an imperfect world,” and said the court was aware of painful ethical problems that wrongful conception cases pose for both courts and litigants.
“It is therefore our hope that future parents and attorneys would give serious reflection to the silent interests of the child and, in particular, the parent-child relationships that must be sustained long after legal controversies have been laid to rest,” Rogosheske said in 1977.
Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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