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The Bolam Test: An unfair decision in the torts of professional negligence

Source: Derick Adu-Gyamfi

The Bolam Test: An unfair decision in the torts of professional negligence
MarryRight Ghana

Introduction

In his book, Winfield and Jolowicz on Torts, by Rogers W.V.H 13th edition, Sweet and Maxwell, the learned author defined negligence as: 

“Negligence as a tort is the breach of a legal duty to take care which results in damage, undesired by the defendant, to the plaintiff. Thus its ingredients are: (a) a legal duty on the part of A towards B to exercise care in such conduct of A as falls within the scope of the duty; (b) breach of that duty; (c) consequential damage to B…” 

The torts of professional negligence is not well developed in our Ghanaian jurisprudence like other common law countries. Over the years, our courts have dealt with few numbers of cases on this subject. Because of the dearth of authorities in our law reports, most of the decided cases on this subject has been decided on the Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee1 principle, (popularly known as the Bolam Test).

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