Psychiatric Harm

Question 1

Two key issues need to be addressed

Answer 1

1. Duty, breach, damage
2. Is the victim primary, secondary or rescuer?

Question 2

Primary victims

Answer 2

Fears for own safety
(Page v Smith)
1. Some kind of injury must be foreseeable
2. No need to establish psychiatric harm was foreseeable
3. D must take victim as he finds “thin skull” - irrelevant if ordinary person wouldn’t suffer injury

Question 3

Secondary victim

Answer 3

Fear for the safety as others
Alcock test:
1. Close ties of love and affection to the primary victim
2. Witness event with unaided senses
3. Proximity to the event or immediate aftermath
4. Reasonable phlegm and fortitude “thin skull”

(Taylor v Novo) - relevant event for assessing proximity is the accident not the death

Question 4

Rescuers

Answer 4

(Hale v London Underground) - C must have placed themselves in danger.

Where the rescuer is not in danger, they are seen as secondary and the Alcock rules apply.

Question 5

Bystanders

Answer 5

The law does not allow bystanders to recover for psychiatric injury in (McLoughlin v O’Brian)