a. Should Young and her mother be able to recover damages from the hospital that treated Young against the instructions of her mother? On what legal theories might Young and her mother base their claims?
b. What arguments might the hospital make?
c. If you were on the jury, what would you decide?
For the last four years, Brenda Young has spent her days in torment, rhythmically screaming and thrashing in her mother's modest house in Flint, Michigan. Since a seizure at age 34, Ms. Young has needed total care. She must be fed, bathed, diapered, and, at night, tied into bed so she does not push herself over the padded bed rails. Sometimes she manages a few intelligible words: "Water" or "Bury me." But mostly she screams, over and over, for five and six hours at a time. Her father, unable to stand it, abandoned his wife after more than 30 years of marriage. Her mother has tried to find a convalescent home for her, but none has been willing to cope with the screaming.
Young's situation was predictable. For some time she had been suffering seizures that were becoming increasingly severe. Her doctor had warned her that she would ultimately become profoundly disabled. A month before the seizure that left her so disabled, Young signed an advance directive giving her mother a power of attorney to stop treatment if she became incapacitated. But to no avail: after her next seizure, the hospital put Young on a ventilator and tube fed her during a two month coma, despite her mother's insistence that Young did not want life support.
Divide students into three groups, one to represent each side in this case, and one to serve as jury.