| In re Quinlan | |
| Court: | New Jersey Supreme Court |
| Full Name: | In the matter of Karen Quinlan, an alleged incompetent |
| Date Decided: | March 31, 1976 |
| Citations: | 70 N.J. 10; 355 A.2d 647 (1976) |
| Judges: | Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Mountain, Sullivan, Pashman, Clifford and Schreiber and Judge Conford |
| Opinions: | Majority: Hughes (unanimous) |
In re Quinlan (70 N.J. 10, 355 A.2d 647 (NJ 1976)) was a landmark[1] 1975 court case in the United States in which the parents of a woman who was kept alive by artificial means were allowed to order her removal from artificial ventilation.
See main article: article and Karen Ann Quinlan. Karen Ann Quinlan was 21 years old in 1975. After a night of drinking alcohol and ingesting tranquilizers, Quinlan lost consciousness and ceased breathing for two 15-minute periods. After it was determined that she was in a persistent vegetative state, her father, Joseph Quinlan, wished to remove her from the medical ventilator. Quinlan's primary physician and the hospital both refused.
Quinlan's father retained attorneys Paul W. Armstrong, a Morris County, New Jersey, Legal Aid attorney, and James M. Crowley, an associate at the New York City law firm of Shearman & Sterling with degrees in theology and Church law, and filed suit in the New Jersey Superior Court in Morris County, New Jersey, on September 12, 1975,[2] to be appointed as Quinlan's legal guardian so that he could act on her behalf. Armstrong would later become involved in the Nancy Cruzan case and later still become a judge.[3] Crowley is, as of 2017, legal counsel and advisor to several Vatican-related entities. Judge Armstrong is currently a Senior Policy Fellow and Judge in Residence at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
The Court denied his request on November 10, 1975.[4] Joseph Quinlan appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, which on March 31, 1976, held that he could authorize the cessation of ventilation; and that Saint Clare's Hospital was bound to proceed with this order.
After being removed from the ventilator, Quinlan continued to breathe until her death, in 1985, from pneumonia.[5]
The autopsy of Quinlan's brain found extensive damage to the bilateral thalamus.[6]