A sufficient relationship of proximity existed to justify the imposition of a duty of care between a family seeking damages for wrongful birth and a third party laboratory that had prepared a sample of tissue for pre-natal DNA analysis on behalf of the defendant NHS trust.
|
Hospital doctors had not been negligent in their treatment of a baby who had sustained a rare brain condition shortly after his birth.
|
Breach of duty established, but causation not established on the evidence. Although a hospital had been in breach of duty by not communicating to surgeons performing an operation the results of laboratory tests showing the presence of bacteria in a patient's existing surgical wound, and in not administering appropriate antibiotics to combat those bacteria, the hospital was not liable to the patient for his eventual continuing disability as, on a substantial balance of probabilities, the bacter ...
|
Civil Proof on Causation
Kyle McKenzie (12) suffered from cerebral palsy which was caused by events at his birth in 1994. The proof here related solely to the timing of the events that caused that condition the defenders having lodged a Minute of Admission of Liability in the terms:- "...the defenders hereby admit liability to make reparation to the pursuer, as guardian for Kyle McKenzie, for any loss, injury and damage sustained by Kyle McKenzie as a result of his not being born by 2140 hours on 25 February 1994". The ...
|
NHSLA – Reasonable security and continuity of periodical payments. The continuity of periodical payments for future pecuniary loss in respect of personal injury caused by clinical negligence was reasonably secure, under the Damages Act 1996 s.2(3), as a result of arrangements made between the NHS Litigation Authority, the parties and the secretary of state. The arrangements ensured that the NHSLA was the effective source of payments under the periodical payments orders and that the orders coul ...
|
Misdiagnosis of celiac disease – Recognised psychiatric injury not established. Where a claimant had been misdiagnosed as suffering from coeliac disease and had been on a gluten free diet for a number of years, the loss claimed for psychiatric injury, which was less than a recognised psychiatric illness, was not recoverable at law. The balance of the claim was for economic loss and was time-barred under the Limitation Act 1980.
|
Bolam – No negligent breach of duty. A senior registrar in paediatric cardiology had not been negligent in deciding to reduce the dose of diuretics medication and arrange a review in a month in respect of a child who had a congenital heart defect and had suffered a large pericardial effusion since, at the time of the decisions, an echocardiogram had shown only residual pericardial effusion. The recurrence of the latter ten days later and the consequent cardiac failure and brain damage was not t ...
|
Approach to Bolitho Principle. A trial judge's approach in a trial on the issue of liability to the legal principle in Bolitho v City and Hackney Health Authority (1997) 3 WLR 1151 was correct, but he should not have embarked upon it until expert witnesses had had a proper opportunity to explain why medical practice took the position that the use of open questions was a proper method to diagnose a condition.
|
Failure to re-test following diagnosis of Chlamydia – No breach of duty. A general practitioner was not in breach of her duty of care to a pregnant woman where medical records indicated that she had given the woman standard advice about a sexually transmitted disease further to a hospital's diagnosis of chlamydia. It had also not been proved to the requisite standard that the hospital's failure to re-test the pregnant woman for chlamydia had caused her son's premature birth.
|
Where a doctor had failed to advise that the consequences of an injection might cause discomfort during imminent surgery he should not be liable for the unforeseeable development of a vaccine strain disease caused by the operation.
|
| 1 2 |