Psychiatric Damage

Question 1

McLoughlin v O’Brian (1983)

Answer 1

A claimant must suffer from a medically identifiable psychiatric illness

Not merely grief or sorrow

Question 2

Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police (1991)

Answer 2

Secondary victim test

Alcock criteria:

Close relationship of love and affection between the claimant and the immediate victim of D’s tort

Proximity in space and time to the accident involving the immediate victim

Question 3

Bourhill v Young (1943)

Answer 3

Court of Appeal - Bystanders are not a recognised class of claimants

the law will not extend to a person who suffers psychiatric harm as a result of traumatic events affecting a stranger

Question 4

Brice v Brown (1984)

Answer 4

The ‘egg shell skull’

You take a claimant as you find him.

Question 5

Dulieu v White (1901)

Page v Smith (1995)

Answer 5

Established primary victim - test to apply is reasonable foreseeability of injury

Question 6

White v Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police (1999)

Answer 6

Rescuers

The test applied in Alcock equally applies to rescuers