Recruitment: Company doctor owed duty of care to prospective employee

A doctor retained by a company to carry out pre-employment medical assessments of its prospective employees owed a duty to one of them to take reasonable care in carrying out his assessment, and in arriving at a judgment as to whether or not to recommend the prospective employee for employment, holds the High Court in Baker v Kaye [1997] IRLR 219. But the doctor was not in breach of that duty. The prospective employee's medical history and blood test results supported a view of his level of alcohol consumption justifying the doctor's recommendation that he should not be offered the employment.