FAM600373-0001

R v Jordan (1956) 40 Cr App Rep 152

R v Blane at 449
There have been two cases in recent years which have some bearing on this topic: R v
Jordan and R v Smith. In R v Jordan the Court of Criminal Appeal, after conviction,
admitted some medical evidence which went to prove that the cause of death was not
the blow relied on by the prosecution but abnormal medical treatment after admission
to hospital. This case has been criticised but it was probably tightly decided on its
facts. Before the abnormal treatment started the injury had almost healed. We share
Lord Parker CJ’s opinion ([1959] 2 All ER at 198, [1959] 2 QB at 43) that R v Jordan
should be regarded as a case decided on its own special facts and not as an authority
relaxing the common law approach to causation.

R v Smith [1959] 2 All E!? 193 at 199

The court is satisfied that R v Jordan was a very particular case depending on its ;
exact facts. It incidentally arose in the Court of Criminal Appeal on the grant of
an application to call further evidence, and, leave having been obtained, two well-
known medical experts gave evidence that in their opinion death had been caused,
not by the stabbing, but by the introduction of Terramycin after the deceased had
shown that he was h/tolerant o 1 an e" ous i~tuction~
quantities of liquid. It also appears that, at the time when that was done, the stab
wound, which had penetrated the intestine in two places, had mainly healed. In
those circumstances the court felt bound to quash the conviction because they
could not say that a reasonable jury, properly directed, would not have been able,
on that evidence, to say that there had been a break in the chain of causation; the
court could uphold the conviction in that case only if they were satisfied that no
reasonable jury could have come to that conclusion.

http://www.lawteacher.net/criminal-law/cases/homicide-intro.php

R v Jordan (1956) 40 Cr App R 152. The defendant stabbed the victim who was
admitted to hospital and died eight days later. In the Court of Appeal, the fresh
evidence of two doctors was allowed to the effect that (a) in their opinion death had
not been caused by the stab wound, which was mainly healed at the time of the death,
but by the medical treatment; (b) the victim had been given an anti-biotic to which he
was allergic and large amounts of intraveneous liquid; and (c) this treatment,
according to the evidence, was "palpably wrong", and the direct and immediate cause
of death (pneumonia). The court held that the stab wound was merely the setting
within which another cause of death operated, and quashed the conviction. They held
that a jury might not have been satisfied that the death was caused by the stab wound
had they had all the medical evidence and expert opinion.

Jordan was distinguished by the Court of Appeal in R v Smith [1959] 2 QB 35, as a

"very particular case depending upon its exact facts".