Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority [1987] UKHL 11 – Law Journals

Causation: Looking for answers

Paul Sankey examines the issues in Dr Sido John v Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust ‘The “material contribution” test only applies in cases where it is impossible to attribute particular damage to a specific cause and therefore apportionment cannot be appropriate.’The recent case of Dr Sido John v Central Manchester …

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Causation: The sum of the parts

Matthew White weighs up the ‘but for’ test and material contribution in cumulative cause cases ‘The “material contribution” approach applies just as much to multiple factor cases as to single agency cases.’ An article in this publication in 2013 (‘Breach of duty and causation, where are we now?’ by Christopher Sharp QC and Matthew White, …

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Material Contribution: Causes for concern

Julian Matthews highlights a case that demonstrates the courts’ approach to contribution to injury ‘Even where there were multiple causes, if the defendant’s breach of duty had materially contributed to one of those causes and that contribution was material to the development of the condition overall, then the principles of material contribution applied, and causation …

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Clinical Negligence: Delay of reckoning

The material contribution test for causation in clinical negligence has been maintained and clarified following Williams and John. Suzanne Farg reports ‘The defendant appealed to the Privy Council on the basis that the Court of Appeal had been “led into error by a misinterpretation of ‘material contribution’ as sufficient for the purposes of causation.”’The recent …

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Advocate’s Advice: Keeping it simple

Bill Braithwaite QC highlights a judgment with clear findings on causation and material contribution ‘A claim will fail if the most that can be said is that the claimant’s injury is likely to have been caused by one or more of a number of disparate factors, one of which was attributable to a wrongful act …

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Case Report: Christine Reaney v University of North Staffordshire NHS Trust (1) and Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (2) [2014] EWHC 3016 (QB)

Negligent treatment of pre-existing paraplegia; establishing the appropriate counterfactual; whether credit should be given for care required in any event ‘One might say that the paradigmatic negligent act is to make that person worse. A court may well have sympathy with a vulnerable individual whose quality of life is reduced even further by those in …

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Evaluating Claims: Successive causes of injury: the causation conundrum

Julian Matthews assesses the difficult legal issues that arise when multiple causes give rise to a compound injury ‘In clinical negligence cases, the complexity of the factual matrix means that the fine line between recovery and no recovery is regularly tested.’ Most clinical negligence litigation arises out of adverse outcomes secondary to medical intervention required …

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