Ingram v Williams

Permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed challenge has no reasonable prospect of success. A trial judge’s evaluation of witness reliability and competing evidence is not open to appellate interference where its evidential foundations remain intact. A judge may reject the alleged factual basis of a negligence claim without finding the alternative factual explanation advanced by the evidence. A conclusion is not unfair merely because experts or witnesses were not asked to address a hypothesis which the judge did not actually find. Where the claimant cannot establish the essential fact on which breach depends, the negligence claim cannot succeed.

Collette Ingram, acting for Conan Ingram, sought permission to appeal from Walker J’s decision in the Queen’s Bench Division, Chester District Registry, reported as [2010] EWHC 758. The claim alleged that Dr Gareth Williams negligently failed to diagnose or suspect premature rupture of the membranes when Ms Jones consulted him on 29 July 1983.

The claimant contended that Ms Jones had given a history of incontinence and that hospital admission would have avoided or reduced the conditions causing Conan’s cerebral palsy. Walker J rejected the evidence said to establish fluid loss before the consultation and concluded that the essential fact—that Ms Jones had reported incontinence to Dr Williams—had not been proved. The central issue was whether the proposed challenge to those factual conclusions had a reasonable prospect of success.

1. Permission refused. The claimant had no reasonable prospect of establishing that Walker J was wrong, and the application for permission to appeal was refused.
2. The negligence claim depended on proving that Ms Jones had given Dr Gareth Williams a history of incontinence before or during the consultation on 29 July 1983. Walker J was entitled to conclude that her recollection, and that of Mr Ingram, could not safely be relied upon without independent support. The judge had given several reasons for that assessment, including the lapse of time, discrepancies in the accounts, the absence of any report of the alleged loss of fluid to Mr Aled Williams on 1 August, and the absence of the account from the first witness statement.
3. The judge considered and rejected the alleged independent evidence of premature rupture. The reduction in estimated uterine size was unreliable because the earlier measurement was imprecise. The premature birth did not itself establish premature rupture. The hospital note recording possible membrane rupture one week earlier was consistent with substantial fluid loss after the consultation with Mr Aled Williams, but did not require a different conclusion.
4. Walker J had not found that premature rupture of the membranes occurred. His conclusion was limited to the possibility that some urine or amniotic fluid was lost after Ms Jones saw Mr Aled Williams. The Court of Appeal treated that conclusion as supported by the evidential foundations and observed that the absence of any report of a dramatic loss of fluid to Mr Williams was significant.
5. The conclusion was not unfair. The judge had not found the specific hypothesis of minimal dampness before 1 August followed by substantial post-consultation loss. Ms Jones had been asked about loss of fluid after seeing Dr Williams and had denied it; the suggested timing between 1 and 3 August would have elicited the same answer from her and Mr Ingram.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal from Walker J’s decision was refused. The proposed challenge to the factual findings had no reasonable prospect of success.
• High Court, Queen’s Bench Division, Chester District Registry: Walker J concluded that Dr Gareth Williams had not been negligent and that the essential fact that Ms Jones reported incontinence had not been proved: [2010] EWHC 758.