The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Anne Marie Quinn, a minor suing through her mother, against the Mid Western Health Board and consultant obstetrician Donal O’Sullivan. The Court left standing the High Court’s dismissal of her claim, concluding that she had not proved on the balance of probabilities that delivery by 35 weeks would have spared her all or a significant part of her injuries.
The defendants had admitted negligence in failing to deliver Quinn earlier and, as clarified on appeal, in failing to provide adequate monitoring and scanning. They disputed that the delay caused her brain damage, arguing that the injury arose from an acute event at 28 to 30 weeks of pregnancy and that earlier delivery would not have changed the outcome.
Quinn’s case was that placental insufficiency caused a continuing process of oxygen deprivation, and that appropriate monitoring would have detected restricted growth and led to delivery between 32 and 35 weeks. Her experts said the process contributed to her brain damage, alongside an acute event around delivery and episodes of low blood sugar after birth. The defendants’ experts disputed that account and relied in part on MRI findings to support an earlier injury.
The Supreme Court said the ordinary “but for” test of causation applied. It rejected the argument that the burden of proof should be relaxed under principles discussed in cases including *McGhee* and *Fairchild*. The Court said the exceptional circumstances in *Fairchild* did not apply, and that the plaintiff could not advance on appeal a new causation case that had not been made at trial.
The Court held that the trial judge was entitled to find that the competing medical evidence left the plaintiff’s case unproved. It noted that the judge had preferred Professor Flodmark’s interpretation of the MRI, including his view that the injury most likely occurred between 28 and 30 weeks. The Supreme Court did not make a new finding that negligence caused the injury; it held that the trial judge had credible evidence to support dismissal for failure to prove causation. The appeal was dismissed. The judgment did not determine damages.