Wall v Cooper

[2008] WASCA 53

Western Australia Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Tort Law
2. › Negligence
3. › Medical negligence
4. › Breach of duty of care
5. › Standard of care in prescribing antibiotics
6. › Whether prescription of narrow spectrum antibiotic for dog bite wound breached duty of care
1. Tort Law
2. › Negligence
3. › Causation
4. › Causal connection between breach and damage
5. › Whether failure to prescribe broad spectrum antibiotic caused pseudomonas infection
6. › Requirement for causal connection between rationale for breach and damage sustained
7. › Collateral benefit insufficient to establish causation
1. Tort Law
2. › Negligence
3. › Causation
4. › Evidential onus
5. › Prima facie causal connection
6. › Displacement of prima facie case by defendant's evidence
1. Damages
2. › General damages
3. › Assessment
4. › Chronic pain syndrome
5. › Whether award of $450,000 so disproportionate as to require appellate intervention

Quick Take

In medical negligence cases, causation requires a causal connection between the rationale or basis for the act or omission constituting the breach and the damage sustained. Where a breach relates to failure to protect against one type of infection risk, the fact that the prescribed treatment would have had a collateral benefit of reducing a different infection risk does not establish causation for damage caused by that different infection. The case also illustrates the importance of putting propositions to expert witnesses in cross-examination if those propositions are to be relied upon.