Today’s case is a cautionary tale about the consequences of defendants going on a fishing expedition in their client’s notes and hiring an expert who is prepared to slant the evidence against the plaintiff and produce a report for Court purposes which glosses over the true facts, in order to give credibility to a statement of claim. This specific case relates to an elderly lady who developed breast cancer. She had a very significant family history of the condition and was fu

Adherence to current clinical guidelines of commonly accepted practice is generally a complete defence to a claim in medical negligence. Guidelines are established by national organisations such as the National Institutes for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK, special interest groups such as in gastroenterology or general surgery and may be produced as a matter of local policy in an individual institution. The intention is to promote best practice from a meta-an

This case deals with unintended consequences of a surgical procedure. A complication can be defined as a foreseeable, unintended outcome of a procedure about which a patient should be warned in advance as part of the process of informed consent. Bleeding and infections would be examples of such outcomes which may not be preventable, in spite of a reasonable standard of care. A case in negligence arises if the outcome was unanticipated and resulted from a standard of care wh