Question

Pat was enrolled as an internal BBus student. In week 9 of the semester Pat began to feel unwell, in particular she was often very tired and had difficulty staying awake in lectures, which, you will appreciate, is most unusual in business law. Pat’s family’s doctor suggested that Pat was merely run down and prescribed a tonic. In fact, Pat had the mumps which the doctor was negligent in failing to diagnose. Once the painful swellings appeared, it was obvious that Pat had the mumps and Pat naturally went home to recuperate. Pat made a full recovery in time to sit the final exam and obtain a sound pass in the subject. Three of Pat’s fellow students were not so fortunate, since, as a result of contact with Pat, after she saw her doctor but before she knew she had the mumps, they developed the disease somewhat later, and were unable to sit the exam. As their coursework marks were somewhat below average they were not able to obtain an aegrotat pass and had to repeat the paper over summer school.

Required: On the basis of the relevant law, advise, in no more than 500 words, whether the three students could succeed in an action against Pat’s doctor to recover the additional costs of repeating the paper. In particular you should consider whether the doctor would owe the three students a duty of care and whether they could establish the necessary causal link between the doctor’s admitted negligence and the losses for which they are claiming.

Note: since mumps is a disease, the three do not have cover under the Accident Compensation Act 2000.

Answer 1

Answer:

On the basis of the relevant law, the three students could not succeed in an action against Pat’s doctor to recover the additional costs of repeating the paper. This situation is not so suitable situation for the three students to get succeed in the sue against the doctor, as this mumps disease is not so easily noticeable and it cannot be proved that easily that it was present at that time of doctor review in Pat. So it looks difficult for the three students to get succeed

• Doctor Duty of Care: This is the law which states the doctor’s duty of care and doctors are liable for their duty care ad they should take adequate precautions to ensure that they do not have any issue related to duty of care. In this case this is not a straight case of duty of care, as it is difficult to prove the duty of care scene here. The doctor would not owe the three students a duty of care because the duty of care will be applicable if the doctor had not taken the enough care for the Pat. But the mump disease was not easily accessible and identifiable, hence this does not fall under the owe of duty of care for doctor, as it will be difficult to prove the same.

• Doctor’s admitted negligence They could not be easily establish the necessary causal link between the doctors’s admitted negligence and the losses for which they are claiming, because they will not be able to show the adequate evidences and supporting based on which they can establish the casual link between the doctor’s admitted negligence and losses for which they are claiming.

• Accidental Compensation Act 2000: Since mumps is a disease and it is not accidental damages, hence the three do not have cover under the Accident Compensation Act 2000. They will not be able to cover under the accidental compensation act of 2000.