REF: THE 'GOOD SAMARITAN'
PRINCIPLE
In our perpetual
quest for evidence-based postings, it was perhaps remiss of me to omit the case
references to which I referred in my posting to the List on the 30th October
1998.
In case anyone is interested (or
if not, then for the sake of completeness if not for the benefit of the
archives), they are as follows:
1.
The 'Bolam' Test
Bolam v
Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WRL 582, [1957] 2 All ER 800,
in which McNair, J. directed the jury in these terms:
"The
appropriate test is the standard of the ordinary skilled man exercising and
professing to have that special skill. A man need not possess the highest
expert skill, it is well established now that it is sufficient if he exercised
the ordinary skill of an ordinary competent man exercising that particular
art." (Why does the law speak like that?)
2. The Standard
of Care Expected of a First Aid Volunteer
The 'Bolam' test does
indeed apply in these circumstances, even though the original case in (1) above
applied to a doctor and not a first-aider.
The relevant case law is Cattley
v St. John Ambulance Brigade [Queen's Bench Division, 25th November
1988]. The case remains unreported by the major series - a transcript is
available on Lexis. Alternatively, the reference
is:
Griffiths, G. Ll. H. (1990)
The standard of care expected of a first aid volunteer. Modern Law
Review. 53, pp 255-258.
Any further observations from the
'legal-beagles' on the major incident scenario posed in my posting of the
30th?
Regards to
all,
Pete.
Peter J. Davis,
MSc, MIEM, BEng(Hons), GIFireE.