Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlement £?

[ardvo]

For a clinical negligence / personal injury claim to have a case you have to prove 2 things:
Breach of duty (the defendant was negligence)
+ Causation (had the defendants negligence resulted in the outcome/injury of the person?) i.e., if the negligent act was not done, would the outcome have been the different or the same?

~~~~~~~~~~
If there is a clinical negligence case, and the hospital accepts that they did a breach of duty, but deny that there is any causation element - that even if the breach of duty was not done, and they did the correct things instead, then the outcome would still have been the same anyway, (ie they deny causation)

and also an 'expert report' - expert to write on breach & Causation for the case has said that they can confirm a breach of duty, but he feels he cannot write about causation in his professional opinion


then the hospital has done 'partial negligence' - breach of duty but not causation.


The question is, then in these scenarios where the hospital admit breach but not causation, then do the hospital usually offer to settle out of court, by give a smaller amount of smaller damages (just based on the fact that they did a breach? ) which would a be a smaller partial damages amount of money, .. compared to the amount they would have offered outside of court had the claimant had causation proved too)?

Is it likely that they would offer partial/ smaller amounts of settlements of money ?
on the basis that they admit breach of duty (which can be backed up


or can they see that causation cannot be proved, and think that even if it went to court then the claimant will lose (as they can't prove causation) so wouldn't offer any partial payment as even if it dragged to court, the claimant wouldn't get any money damages anyway,
(so in other words they wouldn't want to lose a 'partial' amount of money now)




I don't want to get into the details of the claim, due to it being a touching subject, but your your help on the 'damages' question would appreciated

[Ripped-Off]

Re: Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlemen

I don't know the answer to the question about a partial settlement, but my gut feeling is no, why would they?

People act negligently all the time. For example, if I were driving down the street with a cup of coffee in one hand, my mobile phone in the other and steering with my knees, then whilst I am driving negligently (not to mention breaking the law) I am not guilty of common law negligence until my actions cause some form of damage. That is the essence of causation. The damage must be causally linked to the negligent act and have been reasonably foreseeable. There are also other factors to consider such as 'novus actus interveniens' (a new intervening act).

[des8]

Re: Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlemen

no causation = no claim.
However to avoid court costs the hospital might offer a small sum, which would be less that their anticipated legal costs.

[ardvo]

Re: Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlemen

no causation = no claim.
However to avoid court costs the hospital might offer a small sum, which would be less that their anticipated legal costs.

Thanks, this is the type of info I was after,


even if the hospital know that there is no causation, then could they still possibly offer a small sum (even £500 - £1000) which will be less than their legal costs,

(but they admit that there was a breach/mistake- but even if the hospital is confident that there is no causation, could they still offer this small sum, as a possibility ?)


Thanks.

[des8]

Re: Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlemen

They could, but whether or not they will is another matter.
It will depend on how pragmatic they are, and how forceful the injured party appears.
If the negligence caused a certain amount of provable distress there might be leverage there.

This is all very much "might" & "may", and there are many factors to take into account, not least the administrators' attitude.

[Ripped-Off]

Re: Hospital admit negligence but not causation, would they offer 'PARTIAL' settlemen

Would you give money to someone if you didn't have to? It's not in their or the publics interest to give away taxpayers money for a negligent act that did not cause any damage. That may sound blunt and insensitive, but that is the reality.

Report them to the Care Quality Commission and move on.