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Temple Garden Chambers is a leading common law set based in London and The Hague.
With excellence from top to bottom Chambers provides a first class service in a number of different fields.
Resources
Blogs and Publications
Trending Topics
07/05/2026
| Anthony Johnson represented the Claimant who was employed by an agency to clean on a Ward at the Defendant’s Hospital. In the course of that employment, she was attacked by a vulnerable patient who was known to become violent when agitated. The Claimant alleged that there were a number of breaches on the part of the Defendant. The Defendant denied liability, and in any event denied that the alleged breaches were causative of the injuries suffered by the Claimant. There were significant disputes of fact between the parties that led to it reaching a contested trial on the issues of liability and contributory negligence. There were also extensive disputes in relation to medical causation and quantum. Following a three-day Multi-Track trial, Recorder Brander accepted the Claimant’s case that the Defendant had been negligent. Although she found that there had been three separate breaches of duty on the part of the Defendant, she held that the only one of them that had been causative of the injury, loss and damage that the Claimant had sustained was the Defendant’s Ward Sister failing to immediately order her to leave the vicinity when the patient returned to the location where she was cleaning. The Claimant was found to have been 50% contributorily negligent due to her approaching the patient despite having previously been warned, and separately been aware from her own observations, that he posed a potential danger to her safety. Assessment of damages proved to be particularly complex due to a number of reasons: (i) the incident accelerated a pre-existing, asymptomatic back condition; (ii) the Defendant argued that there had been an intervening act that broke the chain of causation; (iii) the Claimant suffered simultaneous knee symptoms that were not ultimately attributed to the accident; (iv) the Court refused both parties permission to rely upon further medical evidence; (v) the parties differed on the applicability of Griffiths v.TUI ; and (vi) quantification of the losses was affected by a very large CRU certificate. |
