Professions
Medical Negligence and “Doctor X”
In January 2008 we reported the publication of a book by an anonymous Irish doctor, detailing the failings of the Irish hospital system. See a report HERE. The doctor was running a website and was featured speaking on national radio. The website is now not to be found and the book is not readily available. Medical errors happen everywhere; they are not unique to Ireland. In the USA and the UK, the responsible authorities collect statistics to find out why […]
Savita Halappanavar and HIQA
The questions set out below are relevant questions for any effective inquiry into the death of Savita Halappanavar . A HIQA inquiry cannot ask those questions, and if it did, the medical practitioner need not reply.
The Medical Council’s Guidance on Abortion
The Medical Council is the professional governing body for doctors in Ireland. It describes its role as being “responsible for protecting the public by promoting and better ensuring high standards of professional conduct and professional education, training and competence among doctors. Doctors must always be guided by their primary responsibility to act in the best interests of their patients.” To aid Doctors in meeting those responsibilities in difficult situations, the Medical Council has produced The Guide to Professional Conduct and […]
More about the Injuries Board
Errors in assessment (barring a constitutional action yet to come) cannot result in claims against the Injuries Board, but that is very likely not true of the doctors working for the Injuries Board/respondents.
Can’t pay; won’t pay
n short, to repeat, currently the Law Society of Ireland has no power to lawfully compel the payment of the levy to make up the SMDF insolvency shortfall.
PROOF OF LOSS
Proving a loss of profit is a common event in “business interruption” insurance. It will also arise as part of a claim against a wrongdoer where the damage complained of has closed or stymied the business. However, it is not immediately obvious what the method of calculation should be. The claim is, inherently, speculative. The loss is the profit which would have been generated but for the wrongful act. The turnover for a prior relevant period would be a start, […]
Auditors
However, an auditor is obliged to take account of the possibility of fraud. Just because a valuation is on a file from an “independent” agent the auditor is not relieved of his/her obligation to consider whether the accounts show a true and fair view of the fiinances of the entity being audited. The fraud may be in the valuations.
Investment losses
A fiduciary duty involves avoiding a conflict of interest, for instance. This is an absolute duty; it does not imply a need for care. Either there is a conflict or there is no conflict.
Piltdown Man
It is highly speculative, but an attractive thought, that the Zeitgeist of the early twentieth century produced or induced two events; the development of the modern law of Negligence and the perversion of truth by the Piltdown Man hoax. They are connected in one respect; a lawyer was at the centre of each event. Lord Atkin, in the House of Lords, delivered the seminal judgement in Donoghue v Stevenson, and Charles Dawson, a solicitor, “found” the skull of Piltdown Man […]