The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Darren Purdy in proceedings alleging that negligence in the care and management of his birth caused his cerebral palsy. It affirmed the High Court order dismissing the proceedings against the defendants involved in the appeal.
Purdy was born by Caesarean section at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin on 28 February 1978, after his mother experienced bleeding associated with placenta praevia. The Supreme Court judgment, delivered by Chief Justice Keane on 5 February 2003, records that Purdy has cerebral palsy and requires assistance with all bodily functions.
The High Court had found that the hospital was negligent in failing either to communicate its correct practice on cross-matching blood to Dr Vincent Fenton or to correct his practice, if it was not hospital policy. However, the trial judge concluded that Purdy had not established that the alleged negligence caused his condition. The hospital challenged the negligence finding by notice to vary.
On appeal, Purdy argued that the injury could have occurred in the final 20 minutes before delivery, and that the trial judge had misunderstood expert evidence about when the damage occurred. His counsel also challenged the decisions to defer a Caesarean section and to conduct a vaginal examination before the operation. The hospital and doctors defended the trial judge’s conclusions, including his reliance on contemporaneous records indicating that the baby was intubated for one minute after birth.
The Supreme Court held that credible evidence supported the trial judge’s view that the injury was more likely to have occurred during earlier bleeding episodes than in the period just before delivery. The court said the judge was entitled to prefer the defence expert’s interpretation of the records, which contained three references to one minute of intubation, over a discharge letter that referred to 10 minutes of intubation and ventilation.
It also found no basis to overturn the conclusions that Dr Fenton and Dr Margaret Skelly had not been negligent. The court noted evidence that proceeding with a Caesarean section without cross-matched blood would have exposed Purdy’s mother to unjustifiable risk, and that the vaginal examination followed a recognised practice in the circumstances.
The court separately rejected Purdy’s application to introduce fresh evidence on appeal. It concluded that the proposed evidence about an article relied on by a defence expert would not probably have had an important influence on the result and would not have required the trial judge to reach a different conclusion.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the High Court order. It made no order on the hospital’s notice to vary. The judgment records that claims against two other named defendants had previously been adjourned generally by consent and struck out by consent, respectively; those dispositions were not the subject of the appeal outcome.