The Supreme Court yesterday quashed a £312,000 (€396,000) damages award by the High Court to a patient who sued her doctor. The five-judge court found the conduct of the trial by Mr Justice Johnson in the High Court was "unsatisfactory", and ordered a retrial.
The Supreme Court also found there was "no evidence whatever" on which the High Court could have based its finding that Dr Vincent Lynch had deliberately falsified a document.
The case had been taken in the High Court by Ms Christine Carroll (45), a retired hospital administrator, of Brookfield Green, KCR, Dublin, against Dr Lynch, who conducted his own defence.
Dr Lynch is a cardiothoracic surgeon who carried on a practice at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, and the Blackrock Clinic.
Mr Justice Johnson had awarded some £312,000 damages and costs to Ms Carroll. She claimed she went to St Vincent's hospital with a collapsed lung and that Dr Lynch had carried out "keyhole surgery" on her on June 5th, 1996. She alleged he made an incorrect entry near the nipple of her right breast, punctured an artery and caused it to bleed.
She claimed Dr Lynch then had to carry out chest surgery to stop the bleeding and that this involved a 15 to 20 per cent risk she would suffer from constant pain. She alleged she now suffers from continuous pain.
At the High Court hearing, the court was told that Dr Lynch had refused to co-operate with his medical insurers and had decided to conduct his own defence.
In the Supreme Court, Dr Lynch was represented by a solicitor and counsel. Included in his grounds of appeal was a claim that the High Court judge's finding that Dr Lynch attempted to introduce a false or fabricated document was unfounded; that the trial judge repeatedly made it clear that he was displeased that Dr Lynch was conducting his own defence and that the trial judge's attitude to Dr Lynch was aggressive, sarcastic and hostile.
Dr Lynch's lawyers argued that the cumulative effect of these factors seriously impaired, and to some extent negated, Dr Lynch's ability to represent himself.
Upholding the appeal yesterday, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Keane, giving the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, said it was essential in any case, but particularly in a case of such importance to both parties, that the trial was conducted in a manner which, objectively viewed, could be regarded as fair to both parties.
A finding by a trial judge that a surgeon deliberately falsified his record of an operation with a view to misleading the court was clearly one of the utmost seriousness, Mr Justice Keane said. "It has to be said that there was no evidence whatever to justify such a finding in the present case."