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Personal Injury Law recognises that where a victim has sustained serious humiliation or mental distress as a result of particularly shameful or shocking conduct by a Defendant then additional compensation known as “aggravated damages” should be awarded. But what if a patient, the victim of medical negligence, suffers feelings of anger , indignation or degradation when told that they have undertaken treatment to which they gave their consent when in fact that treatment was wholly unnecessary and was only undertaken by the Medical Practitioner for his/her personal gain?
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Personal Injury Case of Appleton – v – Garrett [1996] PIQR P1
Aggravated damages can apply in clinical negligence cases
Appleton v Garrett [1996] established that patients may receive aggravated damages where unnecessary treatment causes anger, indignation or distress.
Consent can be invalid if a patient has been misled
Even where a patient appears to have given consent, the Court may find that consent was “vitiated” if they were not told the truth about the treatment.
The principle extends beyond one specific case
The Court’s approach means vitiated consent may apply to a wider range of situations where a patient’s consent was obtained through misleading information or a failure to disclose important facts.
The Problem
The Solution
In the case of Appleton – v – Garrett [1996] PIQR P1 the Court extended the concept of “aggravated damages” for the first time to a clinical negligence case in order to say that even where consent had been given in the first place, if thereafter it is found that the treatment was wholly unnecessary and carried out for profit, then the patient should be entitled to aggravated damages for the sense of anger and indignation at having had to suffer the consequences of treatment without being told that it was in fact unnecessary in the first place.
The Outcome
Traditionally in Medical Law, cases about consent were about failure to obtain consent. As a result of the above case, even if it appears that consent has been given, the Court may hold that where a person has given consent as a result of being misled or not told the truth then that consent is treated as “vitiated”, that is, it was not a valid consent in the first place. The range of cases where consent may be found to have been vitiated is not confined merely to the situation as it arose in the Appleton case but may apply to other factual situations.
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Aggravated damages can apply in clinical negligence cases
Appleton v Garrett [1996] established that patients may receive aggravated damages where unnecessary treatment causes anger, indignation or distress.
Consent can be invalid if a patient has been misled
Even where a patient appears to have given consent, the Court may find that consent was “vitiated” if they were not told the truth about the treatment.
The principle extends beyond one specific case
The Court’s approach means vitiated consent may apply to a wider range of situations where a patient’s consent was obtained through misleading information or a failure to disclose important facts.
