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All appeals are dismissed.
The costs of appeal are assessed against the Defendants.
Reasons
The grounds of appeal are examined.
1. In a case where there is no possibility for a patient to recover consciousness, and where it is evident that a patient may have died within a short time in light of the patient’s physical condition (hereinafter “unreparable stage of death”), medical treatment (hereinafter “reparable treatment”) is not for the purpose of protecting the disease, but for the purpose of maintaining the present state of the patient’s condition when the patient actually renounced the face of the disease. Thus, the possibility of allowing the suspension of medical treatment should be determined on a basis different from the case where the patient did not reach the point of view.
Therefore, in cases where a patient is deemed to exercise his/her right to self-determination based on the right to pursue happiness after reaching the irrecoverable stage of death, discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment can be allowed unless there are special circumstances.
(See Supreme Court en banc Decision 2009Da17417 Decided May 21, 2009). Meanwhile, in a case where a patient entered the irrecoverable stage of death without disclosing the patient’s intention to refuse or discontinue life-sustaining treatment (hereinafter “pre-medical instruction”) and the patient directly files a lawsuit seeking discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment with a court, barring special circumstances, life-sustaining treatment ordering discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment is no longer allowed upon the final judgment ordering discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment, but existing medical contract between a patient and a medical person continues to exist within the remainder of life-sustaining treatment with the exception of life-sustaining treatment ordering discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment.
2. Review of the reasoning of the lower judgment and the record reveals the following facts.
F is admitted to the Plaintiff’s hospital on February 16, 2008 and the Plaintiff.