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Thornton v Nicol
(1992) 3 Med LR 41
Professional liability — General practitioner — Diagnosis — Baby presented with temperature, inflammation of conjunctiva and redness of left eye — Possibilities of cavernous sinus thrombosis and meningitis rejected — Diagnosis of conjunctivitis — Improvement on following day — No referral to hospital — Meningitis developed following diagnosis — Whether doctor negligently failed properly to assess nature and degree of illness — Whether doctor justified in conclusion
Cavanagh v Bristol & Weston Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 49
Professional liability — Ophthalmic surgeon — Sympathetic ophthalmitis — Alleged failure to follow up patient after second opinion — Patient not discharged from hospital or referred back to family doctor — Whether patient's deterioration would at once have been seen and exciting eye removed — Whether late enucleation had reasonable chance of success in preventing onset of disease — Expert evidence — Treating consultants — Whether evidence upon issue should be limited to an account of what they had done or not done - Comments by court — Causation — Reasonable body of medical opinion contrary to views of plaintiff's experts — Bolam test not relevant to issue of causation — Comments by court — Evidence — Medical cases — Extracts from text books and articles written by other specialists not called as witnesses — Comments by court
Heath v West Berkshire Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 57
Professional liability — Dental surgeon — Injury to lingual nerve — Whether retractor incorrectly positioned or drill misapplied — Failure to warn of possible temporary alteration in sensation — Whether negligent or causative
Lynch v Lynch
(1992) 3 Med LR 62
Negligence — Ante — natal tort — Mother's duty of care towards her unborn child — Pregnant woman negligently driving truck — Daughter born with cerebral palsy — Whether daughter could claim damages for injury
Christie v Somerset Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 75
Professional liability — Dental surgery — Removal of wisdom teeth — Lingual nerve damaged resulting in loss of sense of taste and numbness of the tongue — Whether injury caused by burr contacting nerve; elevator crushing or nipping nerve; stretching — Defence theory that injury probably caused by necessary stretching, without any negligence
In re L
(1992) 3 Med LR 78
Abortion — Wardship — Best interests — Application for order for termination of pregnancy of ward aged 12 — Wishes of parties — Conflicting medical evidence — Interests of ward paramount — Desirability of Official Solicitor representing ward in such cases
Doughty v North Staffordshire Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 81
Limitation of action — Personal injury — Expiry of time for bringing action — Application for extension of time — Whether Court should grant application — Factors to be considered — Limitation Act 1980, ss 11, 14 and 33 — Negligence — Personal injury — Plastic surgeon — Birth mark on patient's face — Smooth skin under mark — Mark capable of being hidden by cosmetics — Surgeon performing succession of operations over long period — Patient's condition worse — Mark always visible — Whether surgeon negligent in operating at all — Damages
Cranley v Medical Board of Western Australia
(1992) 3 Med LR 94
Professional conduct — General practitioner — Medical treatment of drug addicts — Treatment under “harm reduction” policy — Prescription of parenteral valium for self-administration — Prescription of allegedly excessive quantities of doloxine, rohypnol and valium tablets — Doctor charged with “infamous” and “improper conduct” — Whether treatment recognized by reputable minority of medical practitioners — Meaning of “proper therapeutic purposes” — Medical treatment — Drug addicts — Whether treatment under “harm reduction” policy recognized by reputable minority of medical practitioners
Hendy v Milton Keynes Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 114
Limitation — Medical negligence action — ”knowledge” — Plaintiff appreciated in general terms that problem (continuing incontinence) was capable of being attributed to hysterectomy operation — Particular facts of what specifically went wrong not known — Whether plaintiff had “knowledge” within Limitation Act 1980 section 14 — Whether court should exercise discretion under section 33 and direct that provisions of Limitation Act section 11 should not apply
Hendy v Milton Keynes Health Authority (No 2)
(1992) 3 Med LR 119
Professional liability — Gynaecological surgeon — Hysterectomy operation — Right ureter unintentionally ligated resulting in damage to ureter, incontinence and remedial operation — Incidence of non-culpable ureteric damage in abdominal hysterectomy
McSherry v British Telecom
(1992) 3 Med LR 129
Occupational medicine — Repetitive strain injury (RSI) — Plaintiffs employed by defendants as data processing officers (DPOs) in keyboard work — Pain caused by overloading of muscles and tendons — Whether defendants liable. — Statutory duty — Breach — Repetitive strain injury — Suitable seats for sedentary work to be provided by employers — Whether defendants in breach — Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963, section 14
Thompson v Johnson & Johnson
(1992) 3 Med LR 148
Product liability — Duty to warn — Extent of risk — Use of tampons allegedly resulting in toxic shock syndrome — Whether relationship existed between use of tampons and development of toxic shock syndrome — Whether warning of risk reasonably required in Australia in 1980 — Duty of care — Whether manufacturer and distributor of tampons negligent in failing to provide warning labels, advertisements in media or to write to medical practitioners — Relevance of Health Department policy
Lockley v National Blood Transfusion Service
(1992) 3 Med LR 173
Legal aid — Costs — Set-off — Order that costs awarded against legally-aided party were to be set-off against costs or damages to which legally-aided party might become entitled — Whether order wrong in principle — Legal Aid Act 1988 section 17(1), Civil Legal Aid (General) Regulations 1989 regulation 124(1)
Roy v Kensington & Chelsea & Westminster Family Practitioner Committee
(1992) 3 Med LR 177
National Health Service — General practitioner — Legal relationship with family practitioner committee — Practitioner's basic practice allowance reduced by family practitioner committee — Whether practitioner could challenge decision by action commenced by writ
AB and Others v John Wyeth & Brother Ltd and Another
(1992) 3 Med LR 190
Evidence — Group litigation — Disclosure — Benzodiazepine Litigation Scheme — Reference in medical report delivered with statement of claim to written statement made by plaintiff to solicitor — Whether defendants entitled to disclosure of written statement — RSC Order 18, rule 12(1A), Order 24, rule 10
X and Y v Pal and Others
(1992) 3 Med LR 195
Negligence — Duty of care — Unborn child — Whether child entitled to sue in respect of medical practitioner's negligent act occurring before child's birth or conception — Child born infected with syphilis due to medical practitioner's failure to test mother for syphilis — Whether child entitled to damages — Whether child's dysmorphia and mental retardation causally connected with syphilitic infection. — Evidence — Expert medical evidence — Causation — Approach by court — Experts” reasons why syphilis was not cause of child's dysmorphic features
McLennan v Newcastle Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 215
Professional liability — Surgeon — Sterilization — Whether plaintiff's post-operative counselling negligent — Whether plaintiff should have been advised to have hysterosalpingogram
Dobbie v Medway Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 217
Limitation — Knowledge — Discretion — Mastectomy performed in 1973 — Action based on lack of consent and negligence commenced in 1989 — Whether plaintiff had knowledge within three-year period that her injury was significant and capable of being attributable to defendants” fault — Whether it would have been reasonable for plaintiff to have sought advice prior to May 1986 — Whether court should exercise its discretion in plaintiff's favour
Burgess v Newcastle Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 224
Professional liability — Neurosurgeon — Bilateral shunt operation — Patient sustaining neurological defects — Whether operation technique practised or approved by any reasonable body of neurosurgeons — Whether fact that catheter ended up in Sylvian Fissure raised presumption of negligence
Berger and Others v Eli Lilly & Co and Others
[1992] LS Law Med 233
Limitation — Knowledge — Opren cases — Actual and constructive knowledge — Actions claiming damages for personal injuries allegedly sustained as a result of taking drug Opren between October 1980 and August 1982 — Writs issued 1987, 1988 and 1989 — Whether actions time-barred because plaintiffs had actual and constructive knowledge within Limitation Act 1980 — Wherthert it would have been reasonable for her to have complained to the doctor — Whether claim not time-barred because plaintiff did not regard her injury as significant until June 1988
Allen v Bloomsbury Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 257
Damages — Unwanted child — Principles applicable to measurement of financial cost of bringing up unwanted child — Plaintiff's loss of earnings, prospects of remarriage and employment — Costs of maintaining child, equipment bought for child, garage conversion and enhanced value of house — Whether claim for cost of maintaining child until she was 18, based on average National Foster Care Association figures, was reasonable — Whether cost of child's future wedding recoverable — Plaintiff's claim for pain and suffering and loss of amenity — Whether defendants liable for additional damages because child had temper tantrums, defective speech and slight dyslexia
Robinson v Salford Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 270
Damages — Quantum — Economic loss — Failed sterilization operation — Child born prematurely — Quantum of damages in respect of general damages, parents” loss of earnings, child's maintenance and travel costs
Australian Red Cross Society v BC
(1992) 3 Med LR 273
Practice — Interrogatories — Identity of blood donor — Claim against Red Cross as collector and supplier of blood by plaintiff alleging that she was infected with HIV from contaminated blood — Red Cross ordered to supply name and address of donor on grounds that public interest in administration of justice predominated over public interest in not disclosing information — Whether statutory provisions implemented deliberate public policy that information given to Red Cross would not be kept in confidence — Whether judge applied correct test and/or was in error in his assessment of the respective weights of the two competing interests
The Queen v Joint Committee on Higher Medical Training, ex p Goldstein
(1992) 3 Med LR 278
Judicial review — Accreditation — Higher specialist training — Rheumatology — Application for accreditation by registered medical practitioner dismissed by Joint Committee on Higher Medical Training — Whether decision should be quashed on grounds of construction, over-rigid policy, legitimate expectation, perversity and unreasonableness and breach of natural justice
Stobart v Nottingham Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 284
Discovery — Fatal accident — Pre-action discovery — Whether discovery should be ordered to precede inquest
Gascoine v Haringey Health Authority
[1992] LS Law Med 291
Practice and procedure — Medical negligence action — Dismissal for want of prosecution — Solicitor instructed over five years after relevant event — Particular need to act promptly — Delay in instructing medical experts — Whether inordinate and inexcusable periods of delay had seriously prejudiced defendants — Whether economic prejudice due to new arrangement imposed by Department of Health too vague to be taken into account — Whether plaintiff's action time-barred
Re A
(1992) 3 Med LR 303
Medical treatment — Jurisdiction — Child brain-stem dead — No medical issue whether or not child was dead or as to nature of injuries which had caused death — Interests of child, nursing and medical hospital staff — Court's jurisdiction to make declaration that child was dead for all legal, as well as medical, purposes, and that should medical staff consider it appropriate to disconnect child from ventilator, in so doing they would not be acting contrary to law
Re T
(1992) 3 Med LR 306
Medical treatment — Consent — Necessity — Blood transfusion — Adult patient declining to consent to treatment — Treatment necessary to avoid irreparable damage to patient's health or to save patient's life — Effect of outside influence — Guidance to doctors and hospitals
Re J (a minor)
(1992) 3 Med LR 317
Medical treatment — Consent — Minor — Refusal of treatment by 16-year-old girl suffering from anorexia nervosa — Effect of Family Law Reform Act 1969 section 8(1) — Application by local authority for leave (1) to move minor to treatment unit without minor's consent and (2) to give minor medical treatment without her consent — Whether, in light of provisions of Family Law Reform Act 1969 section 8, and fact that minor was by then 16 years old, court had jurisdiction to make orders concerning J's medical treatment — Type of treatment that should be authorized, if court had necessary jurisdiction — Whether judge misdirected himself in holding that he had necessary jurisdiction and in authorizing removal of girl to and her treatment at specialist London unit
Rogers v Whittaker
(1992) 3 Med LR 331
Professional liability — Ophthalmic surgeon — Sympathetic ophthalmia — Patient almost blind in right eye — Surgeon advising her that he could operate and improve eye's appearance — Patient asking about possible complications — No express question whether left eye would be affected — Surgeon not disclosing a 1-in-14,000 risk of sympathetic ophthalmia developing — Operation properly performed but patient rendered blind in left eye as a result of sympathetic ophthalmia — Whether surgeon negligent in not disclosing risk — Whether acceptance of his advice was cause of loss — Measure of damages. — Negligence — Duty to warn patient — Duty to answer patient's questions — Duty to exercise reasonable care — Causation — “But for” test not exclusive test of causation. — Causation — Whether reliance on advice establishes causal link.
Re R (A Minor)
(1992) 3 Med LR 342
Medical treatment — Consent — Ward of court, girl aged 15 — Mental state and capacity of ward — Court's jurisdiction to override refusal by ward to undergo medical treatment involving taking of medication — Ward having capacity to make rational and informed decision, but at other times not having that capacity
Nash & Others v Eli Lilly & Others
[1992] LS Law Med 353
Limitation of action — Personal injuries — Multiparty pharmaceutical action (Opren) — Writs issued after three years from date on which cause of action arose — Whether claims time barred — Date of plaintiff's knowledge (a) that injury significant, (b) that injury attributable to act or omission alleged to constitute negligence or breach of duty, (c) of defendant's identity — Meaning of “act or omission”, “attributable” and “knowledge” — Whether court should exercise discretion to permit actions to proceed — Whether plaintiffs failed to take all reasonable steps to obtain expert advice — Limitation Act 1980 sects 11(4) (a)(b), 14(1)(a)(b)(c),(2),(3), 33(1),(3). — Costs — Group action — Lead plaintiff's entitlement to costs in legal aid cases
Gordon v Wilson and Others
(1992) 3 Med LR 401
Professional liability — General practitioner — Duty to refer — Tumour (meningioma) affecting cranial nerves — Usual and normal practice of general practitioners in appropriate circumstances — Whether circumstances might be such that referral should be made as matter of urgency — Whether course doctors adopted was one which no professional man of ordinary skill would have taken if he had been acting with ordinary care — Patient allegedly presenting with unilateral deafness and imbalance — Whether patient had established that symptoms were so communicated to her general practitioners that they would have had any duty to respond — Relevant test on issue of liability in cases relating to diagnosis and patient management — Causation — Damages — Estimation of solatium — Assessment of costs of past care provided by husband attending to his wife — Transport and telephone expenses
Moore v Worthing District Health Authority
(1992) 3 Med LR 431
Professional liability — Neurologist — Development of peri — operative ulnar nerve palsy — Whether negligent — Res ipsa loquitur
Bradbury v Wayte
(1992) 3 Med LR 436
Chiropractor — Physiotherapy — Use of heat — creating machines by chiropractor not registered as physiotherapist — Whether use of machines was practice of physiotherapy — Whether chiropractor was in breach of Physiotherapists Act 1950 (Western Australia), sections 2, 11, 12