The court applied the Bonnington approach to cumulative damage and held the defendant liable in negligence because they had materially contributed to the claimant’s loss. In both cases, the damage was treated as indivisible and that is why the principle of material contribution was applicable.

The plaintiff suffered an injury to his leg due to the defendant employer’s negligence. Some time later, but before compensation had been paid, the same leg was injured in a shooting and had to be amputated, and the defendant argued that his liability should cease at that point.

The House of Lords held that, despite the second damage, the defendant’s liability should be regarded as continuing and the original damages award was upheld. This decision was called into some doubt by that in Jobling, see later.

The deceased died following negligent treatment by the defendant hospital. It was established that the cause of death was arsenic poisoning and, regardless of what treatment he received, death was inevitable.

According to the but-for approach to causation, the defendant’s negligence had not caused the death. This case is a classic example of the but-for test in operation.

The plaintiff had contracted an industrial disease due to two causes, one of which was his employer’s negligence. He was not able to satisfy the but-for requirement.

This case was treated as one of cumulative damage and therefore it need only be proved that the negligence had made a material contribution to the damage. The plaintiff was successful.

The claimant’s back surgery carried a 1–2% risk of causing permanent damage, but she was not warned of this in advance. She sustained this damage and sued for negligent failure to warn. On the issue of causation, she was unable to prove that, had she known, she would never have consented to an operation.

The House of Lords relaxed the but-for approach on the basis that it is important to compensate patients damaged following medical negligence. This, like Fairchild, was a policy decision.

A number of claimants had contracted asbestos-related disease, having been negligently exposed to it at various points in their working lives. However, they were unable to link their exposure to any particular employer.

A majority of the House of Lords departed from the ‘all or nothing rule’ and held each employer jointly and severally liable and followed the McGhee ‘increase of risk’ approach. There was a strong policy element in this departure and it is expected to be confined to exceptional cases.

Owing to the negligence of a doctor, an early diagnosis of the claimant’s cancer was missed and treatment was delayed. At this time his chance of medium-term survival was 42%. When the disease was finally diagnosed, his chances of medium-term survival had fallen to 25%.

Fairchild was not followed. The claimant’s chances of survival had never been 51% or more and compensation would not be based upon mere ‘loss of a chance’. According to the ‘all or nothing’ approach, the claimant had not proved causation and his claim failed.

A schoolboy injured his hip in a fall from a tree. The hospital was negligent in diagnosing and treating his injury. He was left with a permanent disability. Even had he been properly treated he only had, at best, a 25% chance of avoiding the disability.

Because the claimant was not able to show, on a balance of probabilities, that but for the defendant he would have recovered, he had not established causation in fact and there was no liability on the part of the hospital.

The plaintiff suffered a back injury for which his employer was liable in negligence. Before the trial, however, he developed an unconnected disease which affected his back, making him unfit for work.

The House of Lords held that the disease should be treated as a ‘vicissitude of life’ which, since it was known, had to be taken into account in the calculation of damages. The defendant’s liability thus ceased at the time the claimant suffered the disease. It is difficult to reconcile this approach with that in Baker and that case is now regarded as of doubtful authority.

The plaintiff developed a skin disease due to exposure to brick dust, which occurred while he worked for the defendant who had negligently failed to provide adequate washing facilities at the workplace. He was unable to link his disease to the time period in which he had been unable to wash.

In this case the proof required was impossible to provide, and only one possible substance, the defendant’s brick dust, had caused the damage. Causation, and therefore liability, was established because the defendant’s negligence had ‘materially increased the risk’ of the damage.

The deceased fell while working, his employer having negligently failed to supply him with a safety harness. Evidence was accepted that he regularly refused to wear a harness.

But for the employer’s failure to supply a harness (ie if he had done so), the accident still would have occurred owing to the expectation that the deceased would not have worn one. Causation in fact was not established and the plaintiff lost the case.

The plaintiff’s car was damaged twice within several weeks. In the first accident, defendant A negligently hit the car, requiring the respray of a wing. In the second, defendant B negligently hit the car again, damaging the same wing.

The successive accident did not obliterate or significantly worsen the original damage, therefore the liability to compensate the plaintiff remained solely with defendant A.

The claimant had been given too much oxygen as a baby owing to the defendant hospital’s negligence, but was unable to prove that this negligence was the cause of his blindness.

The McGhee approach of increase of risk was not applied to this case, because there were five different and distinct possible causes of blindness, and the claimant failed to establish causation on the balance of probabilities.