This page collects, in reverse chronological order, key cases pertaining to medical futility and non-beneficial ICU treatment. Most of these cases are from courts but some are from administrative agencies and other tribunals.
The legality of healthcare providers stopping life-sustaining treatment without consent remains uncertain. Consequently, I expect to continue posting cases here, discussing them on my blog, and analyzing them in medical and law journal articles.
Futility cases concerning the determination of death by neurological criteria are separately collected on the Brain Death and Jahi McMath pages. Materials on the Charlie Gard case are also collected on a separate page.
Since 2007, I have been posting court documents from medical futility cases. I am happy to disseminate these materials for free. But while filngs in state and federal court are in the public domain, PACER and state court website services do charge retrieval fees. And the significant number of user downloads on this site requires server bandwidth. If you find this website useful, please consider donating $1, $5, or $10. It’s is a small amount to inform bioethics policy. It’s money well spent.
ProPublica's Nursing Home Inspect: Search a database of federal sanctions against nursing homes across the country, including fines and payment suspensions.
Association of Health Care Journalists offers Hospital Inspections, a website that aims to make federal hospital inspection reports easier to access, search and analyze.