Personal injury: surgeon gets £38,298 for custard slip

A surgeon who slipped on some custard at work has won £38,928 damages. John Conti injured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the October 2000 accident while a senior house officer at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, west London. He required reconstructive surgery soon after and has now made a good recovery.

In October 2004, liability was agreed against St Mary's Hospital NHS Trust and catering company Sodexho Ltd on the basis that Mr Conti should receive 40 per cent of his claim because he failed to keep a proper look-out.

Mr Conti, 36, now  a registrar general surgeon at St Mary's Hospital, in Newport on the Isle of Wight, argued that the injury had delayed his progress to a consultant's post by around four years and significantly affected his earnings.

But, Judge Hegarty QC, at London’s High Court, assessed the delay to his career at only one year. "Mr Conti was something of a high-flier with an academic bent. I am very sure that, but for this setback to his career, he would have  progressed through the stages of senior house officer, specialist registrar, and taken time out during that to do a three year PhD. That would have taken his career up to about October 2010. He then would have had extremely good prospects of becoming a consultant. That compares with the situation in which he now finds himself where, as it seems to me, it is most likely that his career progress to that giddy plateau would have been set back by about one year."

Afterwards, Mr Conti, of Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, said: "I am relieved it is all over. It's been a very long path - six years. I think justice has been done and now I can just get on with the rest of my life."

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