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Wilsher v. Essex Area Health Authority [1988] AC 1074 is an English tort law case concerning the "material increase of risk" test for causation.
The defendant hospital, initially acting through an inexperienced junior doctor, negligently administered excessive oxygen during the post-natal care of a premature child who subsequently became blind. Excessive oxygen was, according to the medical evidence, one of six possible factors that could have led to blindness. On the "balance of probabilities" test, the hospital would therefore not be liable, but on the "material increase of risk" test, which had been applied in the prior case of McGhee v. National Coal Board the hospital would have been found to have increased the risk of harm, and be liable.
[edit] Judgment
The House of Lords found that it was impossible to say that it had caused, or materially contributed, to the injury and the claim was dismissed. In a minority view, Mustill LJ. argued that if it is established that conduct of a certain kind materially adds to the risk of injury, if the defendant engages in such conduct in breach of a common law duty, and if the injury is the kind to which the conduct related, then the defendant is taken to have caused the injury even though the existence and extent of the contribution made by the breach cannot be ascertained.
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