R v Malcherek; R v Steel
Turning off a life support machine after brain death does not break the chain of causation between the defendant's attack and the victim's death.
Facts
In two separate cases, the defendants attacked victims, causing such serious injuries that they were placed on life support machines in hospital. After tests showed that the victims were brain dead, the doctors switched off the machines, and they were pronounced dead. The defendants were convicted of murder, and argued that the doctors' decision to switch off the machines was the cause of death.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions. Lord Lane CJ said that where a medical practitioner, adopting methods which are generally accepted, comes bona fide and conscientiously to the conclusion that the patient is for all practical purposes dead, and that such vital functions as remain are being maintained solely by mechanical means, and accordingly discontinues treatment, that does not break the chain of causation between the initial injury and the death. The original injuries remained the operating and substantial cause of death.
Related cases on causation
- Baker v Willoughby [1970] AC 467
- Barker v Corus UK Ltd [2006] UKHL 20, [2006] 2 AC 572
- Barnett v Chelsea and Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1969] 1 QB 428
- Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw [1956] AC 613
- Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41, [2005] 1 AC 134
- Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd [2002] UKHL 22, [2003] 1 AC 32
- Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2, [2005] 2 AC 176
- Hotson v East Berkshire Area Health Authority [1987] AC 750
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