Psychiatric injury Flashcards
Alcock v CC S Yorkshire (1991)
- Psych test
- “mere mental suffering, even if reasonably foreseeable , unaccompanied by physical injury cannot form basis for claim in negligence”
RELATIONSHIPS
Brother-brother: Brian Harrison
Fiance-Peck
Parent-child: Mr(s) Copoc
Hicks v CC South Yorkshire (1992)
- “no claim for distress in what must have been terrifying experience”
- “fear of impending death cannot give rise to a cause of action”
Page v Smith (1995)
-primary victim vs secondary victim
White v CC South Yorkshire (1998)
- primary per Page v Smith - not in zone of danger; Chadwick v British Railway Board distinguished
- secondary under alcock = no relationship
Rothwell v Chemical Cleaning and Insulating Co
Anticipation of harm
Links with: Dryen v Johnson Matthey (2016), later
W v Essex CC (2001)
Unwilling participants
Links with
-Monk v PC Harrington (2008)
Greatorex v Greatorex (2000)
Self harm
Attia v British Gas (1988)
Property
Hatton v Sunderland (CA 2002)
TEST: harmful reaction to pressures of workplace foreseebale in individual employee
Foreseeability depends on “Interrelationship between particular characteristics of employee and demands of the job”
NOT likely: nature of the job - employers entitled to assume employee is “Up to the normal pressures of the job”
NOT likely: employers not altered of any counselling etc
NOT likely: if work which gave rise to psychiatric injury was agreed to in contractual obligation - Barber v Somerset CC (HL 2004)
-Employee would only really be able to sue if she did not originally agree to that kind/level of work: Daw v Intel Corporation (UK) Ltd (2007)
D owed duty in
- Barber v Somerset CC (HL 2004): liable for failing to take steps to ensure health of sound after 3 week break
- Walker v Northumberland CC (1995): breached DOC to provide C with assistance to perform pile of work on return; RF suffer breakdown crucially because of breakdown 1
Walker v Northumberland CC (1995)
breached DOC to provide C with assistance to perform pile of work on return; RF suffer breakdown crucially because of breakdown 1
Barber v Somerset CC (HL 2004)
UNLIKELY: if work which gave rise to psychiatric injury was agreed to in contractual obligation
- Employee would only really be able to sue if she did not originally agree to that kind/level of work: Daw v Intel Corporation (UK) Ltd (2007)
- Liable for failing to take steps to ensure health of sound after 3 week break
Wilkinson v Downtown (1897)
Can recover if someone intentionally subjects victim to trauma (by words)
O v Rhoades (2015)
D’s words/conduct must have no lawful justification or excuse (found here!)
McLoughlin v O’Brien 1983
- claimant discovered 2 hours later, arrived in 30 mins
- No DOC owed to bystanders: “such persons must be assumed to possess ordianry fortude to enable them to endure the calamities of modern life”
- “D cannot be expected to compensate world at large”
Alcock: psychiatric illness nt in the range of RF but could not be entirely exclude if “circumstances of the catastrophe were particularly horrific”
Dooley v Cammell Laird & Co ltd (1951)
D owed C DOC not to cause accident
RF suffer psuchiatric illness as a result
Contrast with Monk v PC Harrington (unreaosnabe)
