Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:47

From: Barbara Legate

Subject: Causation, Multiple Sclerosis and Trauma

I have been involved in such a case. The MS issue arose in both exacerbation of the condition and cause of the inciting event, which was falling down a poorly lit and banistered flight of stairs. The case settled following pretrial. My theory was that the banister was not there for the able bodied but for those who needed steadying. So the absence was a cause of the loss. On the facts, there was an immediate exacerbation of disability. I was unable to obtain an Ontario doctor to support exacerbation of MS although I became aware of a few who are prepared to make the link. My view is that it is fact driven.

Barbara Legate

Please visit us at: www.legate.ca

150 Dufferin Ave Suite 302
London, ON N6A 5N6
Tel: 519-672-1953
Fax: 519-672-6689

From: DAVID CHEIFETZ  
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:26 AM
Subject: ODG: Causation, Multiple Sclerosis and Trauma

I post on behalf of Eoin Quill. The listserv doesn't like him, at the moment.

  

From: Eoin.Quill
To: DAVID CHEIFETZ
Sent: Thursday, March 6, 2008 7:17:18 AM
Subject: RE: Causation, Multiple Sclerosis and Trauma

The link between trauma and MS also came up in an Irish case a few years back, and it was held that on the balance of probabilities a link could exist between surgery resulting from trauma and exacerbation of MS; on the specific facts, the temporal proximity between the injury and related surgery and the deterioration of the plaintiff's MS was enough to convince the judge that the trauma and surgery were the probable cause of an acceleration in the MS.

Curran v Finn [2001] IEHC 5

Eoin Quill
School of Law
University of Limerick

  

Eoin added, separately to me, for those who didn't know (me, for one): "Incidentally, on science and proof the Irish and English High Courts reached opposite conclusions (on what seems to be the same evidence and same legal rule) on a link between whooping cough vaccine and brain damage (Best v Wellcome [1993] 3 IR 462 and Loveday v Renton, The Times 31 March 1988)."

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