The supreme court will not hear an appeal from the estate of a Michigan woman who died following a kidney transplant after turning down a blood transfusion because of her religious beliefs.

The court also will not hear an appeal from an Iowa grain company about a class-action lawsuit brought by nearby residents, over pollution concerns.

In the blood transfusion case, justices on Monday let stand a state appeals court ruling that said the estate of Gwendolyn Rozier could not sue her doctors for negligence. Rozier received a kidney from her daughter in a 2007 surgery but doctors later found her body was rejecting the organ. She refused a blood transfusion, in keeping with the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Rozier’s estate accused the doctors of failing to recognise internal bleeding in time, among other allegations, which would have eliminated the need for a transfusion.

The Michigan appeals court said the transfusion was a necessary medical procedure under the circumstances.

The justices let stand an Iowa supreme court ruling that said residents could bring a nuisance lawsuit against Grain Processing, which operates a corn processing plant in Muscatine.



The lawsuit accuses the company of routinely blanketing homes with soot and harmful chemicals. A lower court threw out the case, but the state supreme court said claims of nuisance, negligence and trespass were not barred by the federal Clean Air Act or related state rules governing air emissions.

Environmental groups backed the lawsuit, but business groups said regulation of air pollution should be left to state and federal agencies and not judges on a case-by-case basis.