Liability in Negligence for Injury to People and Damage to Property: Negligence - Psychiatric Damage

Question 1

What is psychiatric damage?

Answer 1

• Injury to the mind rather than the body

Question 2

What is psychiatric damage sometimes referred to as?

Answer 2

• Nervous shock

Question 3

What must claimants show in order to sue for psychiatric damage?

Answer 3

• They must show, using medical evidence that they have a recognised psychiatric injury

Question 4

Will claimants succeed in a claim for normal grief or distress?

Answer 4

• No

Question 5

What is a primary victim? (2)

Answer 5

• A person who either suffers physical injury as a result of another person’s negligence OR
• Where it is reasonably foreseeable that they could have been injured and as a result they suffered a psychiatric injury

Question 6

What is a secondary victim? Is this the only condition?

Answer 6

• A person who suffers psychiatric injury as a result of another person’s negligence but was not exposed to danger
• There are several other conditions which need to be met in order to be classified as a secondary victim

Question 7

Give a key case for psychiatric injury

Answer 7

• Alcock v CC of South Yorkshire Police (1992)

Question 8

What did Alcock v CC of South Yorkshire Police (1992) concern? What did the plaintiffs claim for?

Answer 8

• Concerned claims made by 10 plaintiffs brought against the South Yorkshire Police
• All 10 claimed damages for nervous shock resulting in psychiatric illness (Hillsborough Disaster)

Question 9

In Alcock v CC of South Yorkshire Police (1992), what conditions were set up to determine whether or not someone can be classed as a secondary victim? (2) What must be proved?

Answer 9

• A claimant must witness or hear the event with their own unaided senses or view its immediate aftermath
• The claimant must usually show a sufficiently proximate relationship to the victim
• It must be proved that it was reasonably foreseeable that the claimant would suffer psychiatric damage

Question 10

A sufficiently proximate relationship is presumed to exist between whom? What does this mean for other relations?

Answer 10

• Parent/child and spouses/fiances

- other relations must prove their ties of love and affection

Question 11

What does reasonable foreseeability depend on in terms of secondary victims?

Answer 11

• Establishing a sufficiently proximate relationship

Question 12

In Alcock v CC of South Yorkshire Police (1992) , what did the House of Lords say about unconnected bystanders?

Answer 12

• A person with no sufficiently proximate relationship may be classed as a secondary victim in exceptional circumstances