In Broadnax v. Gonzalez the court overruled precedent that denied pregnant women tort recovery when negligent prenatal care caused miscarriage or stillbirth. The decision held that doctors owe a direct duty of care to the pregnant patient that permits her to recover for the emotional harm from pregnancy loss. The rewritten feminist opinion comes to the same conclusion, but more thoroughly critiques the prior cases as treating women as separate from their fetuses, virtual bystanders to their own bodies. It also concludes that miscarriage or stillbirth harms women physically, not just emotionally, and that tort law should treat these cases like any other medical malpractice case. The accompanying commentary explores the conflicting ways courts have categorized women’s harm to limit recovery for prenatal malpractice, and argues that greater attention to women’s experience of pregnancy complications and harm loss would improve both medical outcomes and the gender equity of tort law.

Boyles v. Kerr exemplifies judicial reluctance to permit tort claims for negligently inflicted emotional harm. Severely curtailing prior cases that permitted claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED), the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claim for a woman whose sexual partner surreptitiously videotaped their intercourse and displayed the tape at college parties. The feminist rewritten opinion reverses this ruling, making the NIED claim fully available to the victim of revenge porn. It demonstrates gender bias in the court’s conflicting precedents, which approved NIED claims for women comporting with traditional notions of femininity, while denying the claim for the sexually liberated plaintiff. It powerfully asserts the value and dignity of all women and the importance of tort law in deterring callous male behavior that objectifies women. The accompanying commentary situates the case in the development of NIED law and highlights how NIED law is permeated with gender stereotypes.