“House of Lords rejects loss of chance claims in medical negligence”
Mr Gregg consulted Dr Scott about a lump under his arm. Dr Scott negligently failed to refer him immediately for specialist treatment, causing a 9-month delay in diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Expert evidence showed the delay reduced Gregg's chances of cure from 42% to 25%.
Whether a claimant can recover damages in negligence for loss of chance of a better medical outcome where they cannot prove on the balance of probabilities that proper care would have prevented the harm.
The House of Lords held by a 3-2 majority that no damages were recoverable. A claimant cannot succeed in a negligence claim based solely on loss of chance where they cannot prove that proper treatment would more likely than not have achieved a better outcome.
This case definitively established the limits of loss of chance claims in medical negligence, maintaining traditional causation requirements and rejecting a more flexible statistical approach to medical harm.
You're reading the free summary of Gregg v Scott. Create a free account to unlock the full reasoning, the cited authorities and the verbatim judgment — plus structured briefs for 412,000+ UK judgments.
No card required. Free forever.
OSCOLA Citation
Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2, [2005] 2 AC 176
Multiple official and mirror sources — pick whichever loads cleanly on your network.
Falls back to Google for old citations BAILII catalogues separately
Common Room
0 comments · About the Common Room →
No comments yet — start the discussion.
Voted-best comments help future students and feed Caselaw's AI study tools.