News
8 April, 2026
Scott Clair successful appearance in ‘Joanna Cox -v- Optimax Clinics Limited’
Scott Clair acted for one of the successful defender clinicians in the action for damages by Joanna Cox against Optimax Clinics Ltd and others. The action involved a claim for negligence in respect of multiple laser eye surgeries carried out in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
In holding that the action was timebarred, the sheriff held that the pursuer was aware of the statutory facts in section 17(2) of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 by May 2012, more than three years prior to the raising of proceedings in June 2015.
The court accepted the evidence of a later clinician that he had, in all likelihood, advised the pursuer in May 2012 that her subsequent visual problems may have been the result of her earlier laser eye surgery. His evidence was corroborated by the evidence of two others who spoke with the pursuer at the time and who had noted her as having affirmed what was said to her. Nonetheless, it was the pursuer’s position that the limitation period could not have started to run until she was given a correct diagnosis a month later, in June 2012 (within three years of the raising of the action).
The court took the opportunity to reiterate that it was irrelevant that the pursuer did not receive a detailed diagnosis of her condition until she was within three years of the raising of the action. It is not unusual for it to take some time for a correct diagnosis to be made though an injury has clearly been sustained. That does not mean that the start of the triennium is postponed.
The action was therefore dismissed.
Link to the judgment can be found here.