Commissioner for Government Transport v Adamcik [1961] HCA 43

High Court of Australia Fullagar, Kitto, Taylor, Menzies and Windeyer JJ. Commissioner for Government Transport v Adamcik [1961] HCA 43

ORDER Appeals dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Aug. 1 Kitto J.

I have had the advantage of reading the judgment prepared by my brother Windeyer. I agree in it and have nothing to add.

Taylor J.

The only question in these appeals is whether there was evidence upon which the jury was entitled to find that a causal relationship existed between negligence for which in some part each of the appellants was responsible and the death, in August 1956, of the respondent's husband. It is not disputed that the deceased sustained personal injuries as the result of the negligence alleged but it is disputed that his death resulted from those injuries.

In fact the deceased died from acute lymphatic leukaemia some nine or ten months after sustaining his injuries when he was dislodged from the footboard of a tramcar by a passing motor vehicle. He sustained a fracture without displacement of the right acetabulum and abrasions and lacerations to the scalp. He was in hospital for twelve or fourteen days and was then discharged. His general condition was said to be good at the time. According to the respondent, when he came home "he was happy and he was much better". But within a few days swellings were observed in the region of his throat and shortly afterwards in the armpits and then in the groin. He was re-admitted to hospital for examination and found to be suffering from acute lymphatic leukaemia. Thereafter he was again taken home where he remained until March 1956 when he was removed to hospital where he died from this disease in the following August.

According to the evidence leukaemia may be characterized in popular parlance as cancer of the blood. In fact it is a condition which results from a proliferation of the non-granular white cells so that they overwhelm the red cells, cause an enlargement of the liver and spleen and disrupt the circulatory system. The cause or causes of such proliferation are said to be unknown to medical science and the disease is invariably fatal. But as will appear one medical practitioner—Dr. Haines—who was called on behalf of the respondent at the trial expressed the opinion in the first instance that there was a causal relationship between the injuries which the plaintiff sustained and the leukaemia from which he died. As will appear, however, he did not entertain the notion that leukaemia could result merely from a fracture of the hip or from abrasions and contusions; his opinion rested upon the assumed existence of another factor to which I shall presently refer. In the meantime it is of importance to set out the passages in his evidence-in-chief which disclose the opinion which he initially professed to hold: