Sanger Death Moots Surrogate End-of-Life Dispute

In end-of-life treatment cases that reach the courts, the patient often dies before the court can rule.  Litigation is takes longer than the rest of the patient's life.  That is what happened in the case of Daniel Sanger.  

Late last month, Sanger's mother obtained a TRO to reinsert a feeding tube that Sanger's wife had refused.  Yesterday, the court was to address who was the appropriate decision maker for Sanger.  But that hearing was dismissed as moot, since Sanger died.  Sadly, this sort of result frequently means that society is deprived of judicial guidance on these questions.