The High Court awarded Bridget Byrne €90,000 after finding that a tubal ligation performed in 1999 was negligent and that hospital staff later failed to tell her clearly that it had failed. The court refused her claim for €381,678 in agreed child-rearing costs for the two healthy children born after the procedure.
Mr Justice Kelly gave judgment on 20 June 2007. Byrne had been referred to the Coombe Hospital for sterilisation and underwent laparoscopic surgery there on 16 December 1999. Consultant Dr Charles Murray believed he had clipped both fallopian tubes. During a second sterilisation in 2002, Dr Peter Boylan found that the clip on the left side was attached to nearby tissue rather than the tube.
The court applied the negligence test in Dunne v National Maternity Hospital. It found that no practitioner of equal specialist status and skill, acting with ordinary care, would have made that mistake. Adhesions from earlier surgery did not excuse it. Byrne’s consent form acknowledged that sterilisation could fail, but the judge ruled that this did not amount to consent to negligent treatment.
The judgment also found that hospital staff did not tell Byrne in clear terms during her pregnancy or after the birth of Danielle that the sterilisation had failed. The court said she was told there was uncertainty about her fertility and advised to return for a check-up, but was not left in clear doubt that she could become pregnant. It found a breach of duty in that failure to inform her and provide appropriate advice. Byrne did not attend the recommended appointment; the judge said this was imprudent and negligent, but no contributory-negligence case had been pleaded or argued, so he gave it no further consideration.
The hospital was held liable for the negligent operation. The judge said Byrne had been referred to the hospital, had no say in choosing the surgeon, and that the operation was part of the service the hospital provided. He also found the hospital had breached its own duty to inform her.
The court declined to award the agreed €381,678 for raising Danielle and Damien, holding that Irish law should not allow recovery of those costs for healthy children born after a failed sterilisation. It awarded €10,000 for the second operation, €45,000 for the pregnancy and birth of Danielle, and €35,000 for the pregnancy and birth of Damien. The judgment recorded the defendant’s concession that pregnancy, childbirth and repeat-operation damages were recoverable if negligence was found; it did not decide the broader legal question of whether such pregnancy-related damages are recoverable without that concession.