What Hunter v Hanley decided
Hunter v Hanley [1955] is the Scottish foundation for the standard of care in professional negligence. Giving the leading opinion, Lord President Clyde set out what a pursuer must prove before a professional can be found negligent for departing from ordinary practice. The bar he described is deliberately high, and it protects honest, competent clinicians who make defensible choices.
The three things it requires
To establish negligence under Hunter v Hanley, three things must be shown together. First, that there is a usual and normal practice. Second, that the clinician did not adopt that practice. Third, and most importantly, that the course the clinician did take is one that no professional of ordinary skill would have taken if acting with ordinary care. It is that third limb that does the work: a mere difference of opinion, or a road less travelled, is not enough. The choice has to be one no reasonably competent practitioner would have made.
Why it still matters today
Although Hunter v Hanley is a Scottish authority, its formulation of the standard of care sits alongside the English Bolam test as one of the reference points a medico-legal expert works with in day-to-day practice. When an expert is asked whether a clinician breached their duty in the way a treatment was performed or a decision was made, this is the kind of test they are applying: not whether they personally would have done the same, but whether the practitioner's course was one no ordinarily competent colleague would have taken. It is one of the authorities our own medico-legal expert witness, Professor Irfan Jeeva, works with in day-to-day practice, alongside Montgomery and Bolam.
Where it stops, and Montgomery begins
Like Bolam, Hunter v Hanley governs the standard of care in diagnosis and treatment. It does not govern consent. Since Montgomery v Lanarkshire [2015], how much a patient must be told about risks and alternatives is judged by what a reasonable patient in their position would want to know, not by responsible professional opinion. So a clinician can perform a treatment to a standard that easily satisfies Hunter v Hanley, and still face a claim because the consent conversation behind it fell short of Montgomery. The technique and the conversation are judged by different tests, and most modern claims turn on the second.
The authorities in use today
For the standard of care, expert practice turns on Hunter v Hanley and Bolam. For consent, it turns on Montgomery, with McCulloch (2023) clarifying the duty to discuss reasonable alternatives. You can see how these fit together, and how the older cases led here, in the interactive timeline.
Watch the standard rise: 1955 to today →
In use today: Montgomery · Bolam · McCulloch