Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1968] 2 WLR 422
Citation:Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1968] 2 WLR 422
Rule of thumb: If a person commits an act of negligence to cause an injury to a person, but this seems to have had a much more severe effect with the injuries/losses than expected, is there any way to defend this? The classic way is to argue that factually the act of negligence was not the actual caused the injuries – that there must be have been another factor either before or after which caused the injuries.
Judgment:
The basic facts of this case were that a man reported drinking tea and then several hours later began vomiting a lot. It turned out that the man had arsenic in his tea. The man spoke to a nurse at accident and emergency who phoned the doctor. This was a Christmas shift when the hospital was very busy and the hospital resources were under stress - the doctor told the nurse to tell the man to go home and contact his GP. The doctor did not carry out any of the standard checks in accident and emergency which he was supposed to which would have made him realise that the man was seriously unwell. The Court held that this was negligent as basic checks do have to be followed at accident and emergency and that these have to be done by a doctor, but, the Court that due to the man drinking so much arsenic in his tea he was so ill that the doctor could not have done anything for him even if he had been properly diagnosed – the doctor may have been able to have sedated him and reduced his stress in his final moments but this was not claimed for, ‘A doctor’s refusal to treat a patient who appears before him after swallowing arsenic is not a cause of fact in the patient’s subsequent death if it is established that even proper treatment would not have saved him’.
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.