Tort Law, Oxford references

Tort Law, Oxford references

Argument 1

The torts committed here are those of negligence.

With regards to DURU, Russell' family could bring an action against the authority for registering him as a “Priority B”, especially after the doctor decided to give him Priority A in a week's time. Russell was sent home and the records got deleted by accident. The home visits by specially trained social care consultants failed to take place which prevented the assessment of Russell's mental condition. His death could have been prevented if he had been hospitalized. And that way was only possible if he had been evaluated within a weeks time as that was the initial plan.

Negligence in the context of medical profession necessarily calls for a treatment with a difference. In medical terms negligence is defined as “a mistake by a medical practitioner that no reasonably competent and careful practitioner would have committed has defined negligence” Relevant principles culled out from the case of Jacob Mathew v. state of Punjab read as follows(Powell, Rupert 2002): 1. Negligence is the breach of a duty caused by omission to do something which a reasonable man guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do5. Negligence becomes actionable because of injury resulting from the act or omission amounting to negligence attributable to the person sued. 2. A simple lack of care or an error in judgment or an accident is not proof of negligence on the part of a medical practitioner. So long as a doctor follows a practice internationally or nationally acceptable to the medical profession of that day, He cannot be held liable for negligence. Merely because of a better alternative course or method of treatment was also available or simply because a more skilled doctor would not have chosen to follow or resort to that practice or procedure which the accused followed, the suit cannot be claimed. 3. When it comes to the failure of taking precaution, what has to be seen is whether those precautions were taken which the ordinary experience of men has found to be sufficient; a failure to use special extraordinary precautions, which might have prevented the particular happening, cannot be the standard for judging the alleged negligence(Roxburgh 1968). 4. A professional may become liable for negligence on one of the two findings: either he does not possess the requisite skill or, he did not exercise with reasonable competence in the given case, the skill he did possess. It is not possible for every professional to posses the highest degree of expertise or skills in that branch he practices. A highly skilled professional may be possessed of better qualities, but that cannot be made the yardstick or the basis for judging the performance of the professional proceeded against the indictment of negligence. 

A duty of care is established by the principles set out in Caparo 1 which state that the damage must be reasonably forseeable by a reasonable person, there was must be a proximity of relationship between the claimant and the defendant, and that finding in favour of the defendant must be fair, just and ...