“Standard of care judged by contemporary knowledge not hindsight or later discoveries.”
Two patients were paralyzed after spinal anaesthetic injections. The anaesthetic had been contaminated through invisible cracks in glass ampoules, but this risk was unknown to medical science at the time.
Whether the standard of care in medical negligence should be judged by knowledge available at the time of treatment or by later discoveries.
The Court of Appeal held that the defendants were not liable. The standard of care must be judged by the knowledge and practice existing at the relevant time.
This case established fundamental principles about temporal assessment of negligence standards, preventing hindsight bias in determining liability. It remains crucial for understanding how courts assess professional negligence and the development of medical knowledge.
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OSCOLA Citation
Roe v Minister of Health [1954] 2 QB 66 (CA)
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