Mink v. University of Chicago

From 1950 to 1952, the University of Chicago and Eli Lilly & Company (defendants) gave pills containing diethylstilbestrol (DES) to roughly 1,000 pregnant women at the university's Lying-in Hospital, without telling them they were ingesting DES or participating in a study testing whether the drug could prevent miscarriages; years later, the women (plaintiffs) sued, alleging the DES caused physical abnormalities and increased cancer risk in their children, and that the defendants committed battery by administering the drug without their consent. The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing the mothers themselves had suffered no physical injury and therefore failed to state a battery claim.