The appellant submitted (written submissions paragraph 18):
"Fourthly, her honour found that the Respondent explained to the Appellant the 'alternative means available to him to relieve his pain and discomfort'. There is no evidence to support this finding in relation to the time of, or alternatives to, the third fusion."
34 The 8 March 1995 letter reveals that the respondent did explain that the appellant could use his traction machine and would benefit from physiotherapy. The trial judge referred to that evidence (Red 20F-L and 29F-H).
35 The appellant further submitted (paragraph 19):
"Further, (Grey 48D) Her Honour refers to her finding that Dr Weidman had advised of the limited prospects of improvement. The implication is that the Appellant was already on notice of the low likelihood of success. Yet Dr Weidman had not seen the Appellant since 1989 (Grey 270N). At that time the Appellant had only had one fusion procedure. The warning given by Dr Weidman six years previously could hardly be held to be relevant to the knowledge of the Appellant six years later in the face of a more difficult and dangerous operation. Further, the statement of Dr Weidman at Grey 270T that he had told the Appellant about the 10% chance of success sometime in 1985-1989 contradicts the later part of his own report. The success rate of a second fusion (as was awaiting the plaintiff in 1989) was 50%, not 10% (Grey 274G)."
36 The warnings of Dr Weidman, even if not recent, cannot be described as not "relevant". The weight to be given to those warnings was a matter for the trial judge. In any event, as is stated below, the use which the trial judge made of those warnings is different from the use attributed to her by the appellant. Further, criticism by the appellant of contradictions in Dr Weidman's report does not come well from the appellant, because he tendered the report, and he did not seek to have the supposed contradictions cleared up by a second report or by oral evidence.
37 Counsel who presented oral argument for the appellant at the hearing of the appeal was different from the counsel who prepared the appellant's written submissions. Not surprisingly, the focus of the oral submissions was somewhat different. In oral argument the appellant concentrated on the following passage in the trial judge's reasons for judgment, which appeared just before the trial judge found that an adequate warning would have made no difference (Red 29J-L):
"There is also the issue of the extent of the risk. Although the evidence suggests that the risk was increased by the successive surgical interventions, it was still slight. According to Dr Weidman it was in the range of two to 5 percent."
38 The appellant submitted that there were two relevant "risks" to be considered. One was the "risk" of failing to achieve relief of the appellant's symptoms. Dr Weidman said that there was only a 10 percent prospect of success (i.e. a 90 percent chance of no long-term improvement): CAB 274G. Dr Nade said the risk of failure was "relatively high" (CAB 254Q); he also referred to literature suggesting a 62 percent success rate, but it was far from clear whether this was at a second fusion or otherwise or at a fusion at the same or a different level (CAB 254T). The second "risk" was the risk not of a failure to relieve symptoms, but of a positively detrimental outcome, worsening the patient's condition. Dr Weidman said the risk of a post-operative epidural haematoma was no more than 1-2 percent, and that the "risk of a degree of neurological damage that would concern the patient would be in the vicinity of 5 percent": (CAB 273F-K).
39 The basic position of the appellant in submissions was as follows. There were two key factors to consider, the risk of the operation failing, and the risk of a detrimental outcome. The appellant submitted that the trial judge either assessed both risks as "slight", or ignored the former risk. If she assessed the former risk as slight, she erred in view of Dr Weidman's 90 percent figure and Dr Nade's 38 percent figure. If she ignored the former risk altogether, she left out a vital factor.
40 Did the trial judge ignore the former risk altogether? She referred to the evidence of Dr Weidman that he advised the appellant on more than one occasion before 1989 "that further surgery to his back would have no more than a 10 percent chance of producing a worthwhile long term improvement" (Red 24H-J; CAB 270T). The trial judge accepted Dr Weidman's evidence on that matter (Red 29E-F). At one point the appellant submitted that it was "apparent, although not expressly made clear, that her Honour accepted Dr Weidman's evidence of the facts and his opinion as to the likelihood of failing to receive symptoms occurring at a third fusion" (transcript page 6 line 57- page 7 line 3). However that may be, the trial judge's attention appears to have been clearly focused on the risk of failure. She mentioned Dr Weidman twice in analysing the four factors at Red 28M-W. In the next paragraph she accepted Dr Weidman's evidence about the limited prospects of improvement if he proceeded with surgery (Red 29D-F). In the next paragraph after that, she referred to the letter of 8 March 1995 from the respondent which did not say that surgery would succeed, and did say that the respondent "recommended that [the appellant] learn to live with the condition and give it some time" (CAB 75W; Red 29G-H). Since that letter did not refer to detrimental outcomes, the recommendation is inconsistent with any state of mind on the part of the appellant that surgery had good prospects of success.
41 It seems likely that the trial judge was weighing, in her estimation of whether the appellant would have undergone surgery had he been properly warned, the fact that the prospects of improvement could be as low as 10 percent. The paragraph which immediately follows those just discussed is that quoted above (Red 29J-L):
"There is also the issue of the extent of the risk. Although the evidence suggests that the risk was increased by the successive surgical interventions, it was still slight. According to Dr Weidman it was in the range of two to 5 percent."