The plaintiff complained that he had developed a spastic paraplegia following a lumbar puncture.
Held: An inference of negligence was rebutted. However the hospital authority was held to be vicariously liable for the acts or omissions of the professional staff at its hospital who had the care of one of its patients at the material time.
Denning LJ pointed out that questions of duty, causation and remoteness were intimately linked and all directed to the same fundamental question: ‘Is the consequence fairly to be regarded as within the risk?’
Judges:
Denning LJ, Somervell LJ, Morris LJ
Citations:
[1954] 2 QB 66, [1954] 2 All ER 131, [1954] 2 WLR 915, [1954] EWCA Civ 7
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – A v Ministry of Defence and another QBD 16-Apr-2003
The claimant’s father a member of the armed forces had been posted to Germany, and his wife, A’s mother had gone with him. A had been born in Germany, but suffered injury at birth through the negligence of the doctor’s appointed by the defendant . .
Cited – Iman Abouzaid v Mothercare (Uk) Ltd CA 21-Dec-2000
The defendant appealed a finding of liability under the Act. The plaintiff had hurt his eye assisting with a pushchair sold by the defendant. An elastic strap had rebounded into his eye. It was argued that the English Act went wider than the . .
Cited – Farraj and Another v King’s Healthcare NHS Trust (KCH) and Another CA 13-Nov-2009
The claimant parents each carried a gene making any child they bore liable to suffer a serious condition. On a pregnancy the mother’s blood was sent for testing to the defendants who sent it on to the second defendants. The condition was missed, . .
Cited – BPE Solicitors and Another v Hughes-Holland (In Substitution for Gabriel) SC 22-Mar-2017
The court was asked what damages are recoverable in a case where (i) but for the negligence of a professional adviser his client would not have embarked on some course of action, but (ii) part or all of the loss which he suffered by doing so arose . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence, Vicarious Liability
Updated: 21 July 2022; Ref: scu.197042