Ben Bradley succeeds in Cardiology/Spinal Cord Injury Liability Trial

Ben Bradley (instructed by Anna Higham, Stewarts) has successfully established at trial that his client, Tahir Younas, would have avoided spinal cord injury, absent of the negligence of his GP.

Mr Younas suffered a spinal cord injury after he collapsed in a car park on 24 January 2014. His collapse was caused by a cardiological condition, known as intermittent AV block. He had been suffering related symptoms in the run up to his collapse. It was agreed that had Mr Younas been fitted with a pacemaker before his collapse, his fall, and consequential spinal cord injury would have been avoided.

His GP conceded that he had acted in breach of duty by failing to refer the Claimant to a cardiologist, following an ECG performed on 21 October 2013.

The issue at trial thus related to when the Claimant would have been subjected to further investigations; what such investigations would have revealed; and whether such investigations would have resulted in the Claimant being fitted with a pacemaker in time.

The case reaffirms that, where a Defendant’s breach of duty results in an evidential lacuna as to (say) what further investigations might have revealed, the Court is entitled to take a ‘benevolent’ approach to any factual findings which might support the Claimant’s case in respect of causation. In this regard, the Court adopted the same line of argument, which had been successfully run by Ben in JAH v Burne & others [2018] EWHC 3461 (QB), and by other members of Chambers in Raggett v Kings College Hospital [2016] EWHC 1604 (QB).

A copy of the judgment can be found on here.

The judge’s reasons for refusing permission to appeal can be found here.

News 31 Oct, 2019