KIE: A 91-year-old woman suffered a stroke and was taken to an Englewood, New Jersey hospital. In a coma and suffering from respiratory failure, she was connected to a respirator. Shortly thereafter, the patient's two daughters arrived and demanded that she be removed from the respirator in accordance with her previously expressed, but undocumented, wishes. Because the woman was not brain dead, her doctors refused to terminate the life support system until she was adjudged incompetent and placed under guardianship. The patient was subsequently judged incompetent and her daughters appointed her co-guardians. At their request the ventilator was removed and the patient died. The daughters then brought suit on behalf of the estate and themselves seeking compensatory and punitive damages for substantial medical costs and emotional distress. After losing at the trial court level, the daughters appealed to the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, but without success. The Superior Court held that the hospital and the physicians did not breach their legal duty to the patient or family by failing to comply with an undocumented request and by awaiting the appointment of a legal guardian.