Girl, 7, can sue for injuries sustained in womb

A seven-year-old New York girl can sue the city over health problems her parents claim stem from injuries her mother sustained while the youngster was still in the womb, it was reported today.

An appeals panel is allowing Sarah Elizabeth Leighton’s claim for more than a million dollars in damages in an unprecedented decision, according to the New York Daily News.

She was only a 14-week-old foetus when a toilet at a Brooklyn school collapsed in January 1999, allegedly causing teacher Esther Portalatin-Leighton’s placenta to rupture.

The family claim Sarah’s learning disabilities and asthmatic symptoms stem from her premature birth less than four months later, which they say resulted from the damage to the placenta.

City lawyers tried to get the case dismissed before a trial by arguing that the child should have been able to survive outside the womb at the time of the injuries in order to recover damages.

In September 2005 Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Martin Solomon agreed with them.

But last week, the appeal panel overturned his decision, saying Sarah could make a claim as long as the injuries occurred after conception and the child was born alive.

“We’re thrilled,” the Leightons’ lawyer Steven Ferber told the newspaper.