Abstract
Editorial
In the March issue there was a very interesting article by Adam Korn and Julian Matthews(Clinical Risk 2012;18:66), which illustrates that proving causation may be a more difficult problem for claimants than demonstrating breach of duty. This column now reports three recent cases where negligence was held by the judge to have occurred, but causation did not follow. Each involves a different reason for that conclusion.
In Mugweni, the medical position was highly complex and the delay of two to three minutes in recognizing symptoms did not contribute to the brain damage. InHussain, the three-day delay in surgery was immaterial because the claimant would inevitably have suffered deterioration. In McCoy it was necessary to determine, on a balance of probabilities, what a trace would have shown had it been ordered. The likelihood was that it would not have been suspicious, which meant that the baby would not have been born sufficiently early to avoid damage to her brain.