CopyCited 9 times | Published | Supreme Court of Florida | 17 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 691, 1992 Fla. LEXIS 1932, 1992 WL 324714
...f concern that they thereby might incur civil or criminal liability. The parents then filed a petition in the circuit court asking for a judicial determination. After hearing testimony and argument, the trial court denied the request on grounds that section 382.009(1), Florida Statutes (1991), would not permit a determination of legal death so long as the child's brain stem continued to function....
...clude a determination that these functions have ceased, the occurrence of death may be determined where there is the irreversible cessation of the functioning of the entire brain, including the brain stem, determined in accordance with this section. § 382.009(1), Fla. Stat. (1991) (emphasis added). A later subsection goes on to declare: Except for a diagnosis of brain death, the standard set forth in this section is not the exclusive standard for determining death or for the withdrawal of life-support systems. § 382.009(4), Fla....
...This language is highly significant for two reasons. First, the statute does not purport to codify the common law standard applied in some other jurisdictions, as does the uniform act. The use of the permissive word "may" in the statute in tandem with the savings clause of section 382.009(4) buttresses the conclusion that the legislature envisioned other ways of defining "death." Second, the statutory framers clearly did not intend to apply the statute's language to the anencephalic infant not being kept alive by life support....
...alic child is alive for purposes of organ donation. In the absence of applicable legal authority, this Court must weigh and consider the public policy considerations at stake here. IV. Common Law & Policy Initially, we must start by recognizing that section 382.009, Florida Statutes (1991), provides a method for determining death in those cases in which a person's respiratory and circulatory functions are maintained artificially. § 382.009(4), Fla. Stat. (1991). Likewise, we agree that a cardiopulmonary definition of death must be accepted in Florida as a matter of our common law, applicable whenever section 382.009 does not govern. Thus, if cardiopulmonary function is not being maintained artificially as stated in section 382.009, a person is dead who has sustained irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions as determined in accordance with accepted medical standards....
...times in question. Accordingly, she was not dead under Florida law, and no donation of her organs would have been legal. § 732.912, Fla. Stat. (1991). The trial court reached the correct result, although we do not agree with its determination that section 382.009 applied here....
...Art. I, § 23, Fla. Const. [10] Adoption of this common law definition essentially brings Florida into harmony with the Uniform Determination of Death Act, which embodies the same two standards contained separately in our common law definition and in section 382.009, Florida Statutes (1991).
CopyCited 4 times | Published | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal | 1989 WL 27899
...nt so that, apparently, Griffith could not be guilty of killing her. For numerous reasons, there is nothing to this argument. In the first place, it is undisputed that Joy did not qualify under section 382.085(1), Florida Statutes (1985) (renumbered section 382.009, Florida Statutes (1987)) because her respiratory and circulatory functions were not maintained by artificial means of support and because there was no termination of the functioning of the entire brain....
CopyPublished | District Court of Appeal of Florida | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 781, 1989 Fla. App. LEXIS 1579
...ible cessation of the functioning of the entire brain, including the brain stem, determined in accordance with this section. In the first place, it is undisputed that Joy did not qualify under section 382.-085(1), Florida Statutes (1985) (renumbered section 382.009, Florida Statutes (1987)) because her respiratory and circulatory functions were not maintained by artificial means of support and because there was no termination of the functioning of the entire brain....
