O'Driscoll v Dudley Health Authority

[1996] LS Law Med 408

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

and Mr Justice POOLE

Limitation — Knowledge (actual and constructive) — Attributable — Cerebral palsy — Action alleging negligent mismanagement of birth commenced over 23 years after plaintiff's birth — Plaintiff profoundly physically handicapped from birth and entirely dependant on assistance and advice of parents — Parents alerted by television programme when plaintiff was aged 15 but deciding to leave claim until plaintiff aged 21 (mistakenly believed to be the age of majority) — Whether delay unreasonable — Degree of knowledge required of act or omission constituting negligence in complex medical case — Whether defendants had established that plaintiff had actual knowledge at any time before seeing her expert's report — Whether knowledge that injury could be attributed to hypoxia was knowledge that injury was “attributable” to act or omission alleged to constitute negligence — Whether constructive knowledge on plaintiff's part had been established