Can an error of clinical judgment ever amount to negligence? Whitehouse v Jordan [1981] 1 All ER 267

The defendant was in charge of the plaintiff’s delivery. It was a high risk pregnancy, and the plaintiff was born with severe and irreparable brain damage, allegedly as a result of the defendant obstetrician’s negligence. After the mother had been in labour for 22 hours, the latter had made six attempts at normal delivery using forceps before realising this was impossible. The plaintiff, suing by his mother as next friend, argued that (a) the defendant had been negligent in pulling too hard and too long; and (b) the defendant should have moved more quickly to utilise delivery by Caesarean section.