Sports Law Update: Johnson v Williams [2022] EWHC 1585 (QB)

• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Professional Negligence, Sport
• Law Firm: 1 Chancery Lane
• Author: Anirudh Mandagere

Elite sport is a precarious occupation. An injury may abruptly end a promising career. Large sums of money are therefore at stake when a sports player brings a claim of medical negligence against their clinician. The stakes for those who treat such professionals are high. Accordingly, the recent judgment of Johnson v Williams [2022] EWHC 1585 (QB) ought to be carefully studied by healthcare practitioners. It illustrates the challenges for claimants in establishing causation, and the importance of abiding by the principles of The Ikarian Reefer for expert witnesses.

Factual Background

Roger Johnson was a former footballer. He had played in the Premier League for Birmingham City and Wolverhampton Wanderers. In January 2017, he suffered a meniscal tear to his left knee during a training session. Surgery was undertaken, and the tear was repaired. However, the knee subsequently became infected. On 17^th March 2018, the surgeon performed a synovectomy procedure to remove the infective materials.

During this period, Mr. Johnson claimed that the surgeon negligently damaged his medial retinaculum. At about 23^rd March 2018, a fluid-filled lump appeared over his medial retinaculum and continued to refill despite repeated aspirations. An MRI scan performed later showed a large tear in the medial retinaculum. Mr. Johnson alleged that the only possible, and therefore likely, cause of the tear was surgical error. The surgeon argued that no damage had occurred during the synovectomy procedure. The plausible causal mechanisms of the tear were the infection, or the Claimant's failure to follow post-operative instructions.

Judgment

The court was required to determine a preliminary issue of causation. Namely, was the tear caused by a surgical error? Judge Hyam QC held in favour of the Defendant for the following reasons.

The surgeon would have had to use repeated and excessive force to create such a large tear. It was not the Claimant's case that the surgeon had done do so deliberately, and it was unlikely that he could have done inadvertently. Further, the expert evidence indicated that if the tear had occurred during the synovectomy procedure, it was highly likely that extravasated fluid would have been immediately visible to the surgeon, drawing attention to the damage. It would have taken a high degree of inadvertence for the surgeon to have caused the tear, and failed to notice it during surgery; or indeed when he washed out the wound thereafter, or when he carried out...