Ms. Sidaway brought an action in negligence against Bethlem Royal Hospital and the hospital’s surgeon after she was left severely disabled from a spinal operation. Ms. Sidaway, who suffered from constant shoulder and neck pains, was advised by a surgeon employed by the hospital to have an operation on her spinal column to relieve her …Read more

Respondent, Romeo, a severely mentally retarded adult male, was involuntarily committed to the Pennhurst State School and Hospital (Pennhurst), pursuant to the applicable involuntary commitment provision of the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act. While at Pennhurst, Respondent was injured on several occasions through his own violence and the reaction of other residents. He …Read more

Applicants, Mrs. Cosans and Mrs. Campbell, were Scottish nationals who complained about the use of corporal punishment in Scottish schools as a disciplinary measure. Mrs. Campell’s request for a guarantee that her son not be subjected to such punishment was refused. Mrs. Cosans’ son was summoned by his Headmaster for corporal punishment upon taking a …Read more

The applicant claimed that English law violated provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention), after he found out that his wife was pregnant and planned to have a legal abortion without his consent. Specifically, the applicant claimed that England and Wales violated the right to life and the right to liberty and security …Read more

The parents of the 17 years old plaintiff, Claudia Graciela Saguir y Dib, filed an authorization on behalf of their daughter for her to be able to donate her kidney to her brother, who was suffering from chronic renal terminal failure. Law 21.541, art. 13, established that a person over 18 years old could donate …Read more

Plaintiff Virgil Walker filed suit against Defendant, Clovis H. Pierce, the attending obstetrician at Aiken County Hospital in South Carolina, seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief for a violation of her civil rights under the 1st, 4th, 5th 8th, 9th, 13th, and 14th amendments. Virgil Walker, an African American woman on Medicaid, went to …Read more

The employer of an injured steel erector sued its employee, seeking an injunction that would require the employee to undergo radical surgery to obtain relief from a hernia. The hernia, which arose out of and in the course of the employee’s designated work, rendered the employee incapable of performing key work functions. As per the …Read more

Petitioner brought a constitutional challenge to provisions of Oklahoma’s Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act of 1935 (the Act), which permitted sentences of compulsory sterilization for “habitual offenders” in crimes involving “moral turpitude.”  Pursuant to section 195 of the Act, the same sentence did not extend to white-collar crimes, defined as those “offenses arising out of the …Read more

The Petitioner, who suffered from leprosy (Hansen’s disease), was confined in the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila in conformity with §1058 of the Administrative Code, which empowered the Director of Health and his authorized agents “to cause to be apprehended, and detained, isolated, or confined, all leprous persons in the Philippine Islands.” The Petitioner brought …Read more