ACL Partner Damien Conroy lectures on Professional Negligence at the Law Society
On Wednesday 4th December, Damien Conroy, Partner in ACL’s general litigation department, gave a lecture to the Law Society’s Law Diploma class.
Damien discussed Professional Negligence within Tort Law, with topics covered including:
- The relationship between tort and contract
- Who is a Professional, looking at tests such as:
- Are their services skilled and specialised?
- Is there a high standard of service in respect of duty of confidentiality?
- Is there a professional association which regulates admission and seeks to uphold standards of the profession?
- Does the practitioner hold a high status in the community?
- The essential elements of the Tort of Negligence, which include:
- Duty of Care
- Standard of Care
- Loss and Damage
- Causation
- Case law including:
- Dunne (Inf) -v- National Maternity Hospital which summarised the law, as it stands, through six principles:
- The predominant test requires reasonable care by a doctor or specialist
- The doctor departs from general and approved practice
- The doctor defends his treatment on the basis that is generally done by other doctors
- There is an honest difference of opinion
- That is it not for a jury or judge to decide which of two alternative courses of treatment is in their opinion preferable
- There is an issue of fact as to whether or not a particular medical practice is or is not general or approved to be determined by jury
- The process of initiating a claim
- Statute of Limitations for medical and professional negligence
- Examples of differences between medical and professional negligence actions
- A case study looking at solicitors’ negligence cases where the original case was struck out for delay and want of prosecution
For more information on this topic, you can contact Damien at Damien.Conroy@aclsolicitors.ie.
19 December 2019
