In A landmark case for consumer rights more than 100 people infected with the hepatitis C virus through various forms of medical treatment were told yesterday they were entitled to substantial damages from two health bodies.
In the first group action under the Consumer Protection Act, the High Court in London awarded claimants in six "test" cases between £10,000 and more than £210,000 in damages in a case brought against the National Blood Authority in England and the Velindre NHS Trust in Wales, which contested the action.
Lawyers for the 114 claimants in the party action estimate compensation payments could cost the National Health Service about £7 million with the possibility of further payment if there is a serious deterioration in anyone's condition.
The organisations which will be affected by the ruling are the NHS bodies currently responsible for the production and supply of blood and blood products provided by the National Blood Transfusion Service since March 1st, 1988. The court will rule next month on whether the National Health Service can appeal against the ruling.
The significance of the ruling, according to Mr Anthony Mallen, one of the lawyers acting for the claimants, was that it established a legal link between medical liability and consumer rights. Under the Act, which came into force in March 1988, people injured by a defective product can claim compensation without having to prove that the manufacturer or supplier was negligent.
Mr Mallen said that the ruling strengthened product liability law in the UK and Europe. "Producers are not liable for risks which are genuinely unknown to exist, but as soon as the possibly dangerous nature of the product has been discovered by someone somewhere, they will be liable if they continue to supply dangerous products," he said.
In the High Court Mr Justice Burton ruled that the blood and blood products given to the claimants were defective because they were infected by the hepatitis C virus.
Some of the claimants were infected after routine surgery, blood transfusions or during the course of treatment for a blood disorder. But some young children became infected while they were being treated for leukaemia and, while all the claimants were infected after March 1st, 1988, some did not develop symptoms of the virus for many years afterwards.
The Labour peer, Lord Morris of Manchester, who is national president of the Haemophilia Society, described the ruling as a landmark judgment of "huge importance".
"The unmistakable logic of the ruling is that they, too, should now be urgently compensated. The ruling also gives renewed hope to the dependants of the more than 100 people, suffering from haemophilia, who have already died of the infection," Lord Morris said.