Page 51 - The Circle of Life

the first case in South Africa where a hospital could be sued and today hospitals

are seen as businesses and not charitable organisations.

More interestingly, mere thoughts, without any act to fulfil them or bring them

to reality are not punishable in law. It is about evidence I suppose. How will you
prove what I was thinking? You still need to act on it for although you may wish

and dream of the day that your worst enemy is blown up it is not reality.

Legal causation

How far can you be held liable? The answer is called legal causation and it

means not too remotely for that would be unfair. This is a test based on fairness
and justice and is called the elastic test. This is much more complicated than

what we describe but it comes down to a novus actus intervieniens or did
something new happen which is not foreseeable and actively contributes to

further harm after the original harm occurred? In our example above the failure
to tie Mr Z down because the ambulance men were still drunk was not

foreseeable. It was way out and no way Mr X could have known or suspects it
would happen.

In criminal law they talk of the thin skull rule and this is more interesting than

usual and the application differs a lot from country to country. We had a case
where a fellow was given an open handed slap and he fell against a pavement

breaking his skull dying of the injuries. There was no intention to kill him and the
open handed slap usually would not have such an effect but still the charge was

murder. He was found guilty of common assault and fined.

In an English case a woman was assaulted and then refused a blood transfusion

which led to her death. Still the court did not see that as novus actus
intervieniens and the assailant held liable for her death. This is only fair in my

eyes for he caused it. If it was not for his assault the Victim would not have
refused the transfusion. As a matter of interest where children are involved and

the parents silly enough to refuse treatment based on their silly religious beliefs

the court will always over rule them and they run a serious risk of being charged
with murder or attempted murder in withholding treatment. It is abuse to say
the least.

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