Page:Aka v. Jefferson Hospital Association, Inc.pdf/12

638   importantly, to honor subsequent legislative developments suggesting that a viable fetus is a "person."

[2] In part, appellees counter Aka's argument on procedural grounds. Specifically, appellees claim that we are barred from considering the merits of this point on appeal because Aka failed to designate the partial-summary-judgment dismissal in his notice of appeal. We reject appellees' argument. Appellant's notice of appeal stated that the appeal was taken from "the jury verdict returned February 17, 1999, in favor of the defendants, the Judgment filed March 8, 1999, pertaining to said verdict, and the Court's Order filed April 22, 1999, denying Plaintiff's Motion for New Trial." Significantly, Ark. R. App. P.–Civ. 2(b) (2000) provides that any appeal from "any final order also brings up for review any intermediate order involving the merits and necessarily affecting the judgment." In light of the foregoing, we find that appellant's notice of appeal was adequate to preserve appellate review of the trial court's intermediate order dismissing the claims regarding the Estate of Baby Boy Aka.

We now address the merits of appellant's argument. Given our strong reliance upon prior judicial decisions and legislative intent in deciding Chatelain, we must first reexamine that opinion's underpinnings. In Chatelain, we discussed three specific cases presenting this court with the issue of whether a fetus was a legally recognized "person." First, in Carpenter v. Logan, 281 Ark. 184, 662 S.W.2d 808 (1984), we affirmed a probate court's finding that it was without authority to order the administration of the estate of an unborn fetus, and we declined to hold that an unborn or stillborn fetus was a deceased person within the meaning of the probate code.

Second, in Carpenter v. Bishop, 290 Ark. 424, 720 S.W.2d 299 (1986), we were precluded from reaching the ultimate issue of whether a viable fetus, born dead, was a "person" because the underlying suit was barred by the parental-immunity doctrine. Third, in Meadows v. State, 291 Ark. 105, 722 S.W.2d 584 (1987), we determined that a fetus was not a "person" as that term was used in the criminal manslaughter law. Notably, our construction in Meadows turned upon the common-law definition of "person," which did not include a fetus, because the term "person" had not been statutorily defined. Id., 291 Ark. at 107–108, 722 S.W.2d at 585.

Relying on these cases, Carpenter, Bishop, and most heavily upon Meadows, the majority of this court concluded in Chatelain that a decision to include fetus in the definition of person would