psychiatric injury

Question 1

Is grief considered to be a recognised psychiatric injury?

Answer 1

No

Question 2

If the injury is recognised in medicine, will it be recognised in law?

Answer 2

Not necessarily

Question 3

True or False, The injury must be caused by a single, traumatic event?

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Was the claim successful in Victoria Railway Commissioners v Coultas? why?

Answer 4

Not successful.

The gatekeeper had negligently invited the plaintiffs to cross a railway line as a train approached.

You cannot recover damages for ‘illness which was the effect of shock caused by fright’. Such injury was regarded as being too remote a head of damages in an action for negligence.

Question 5

Why was the claimant successful in Dulieu v White?

Answer 5

A horse and cart crashed into the pub. The claimant was not physically injured but feared for her safety and suffered sudden shock.

An action could lie in negligence for nervous shock arising from a reasonable fear for one’s own immediate safety.

Question 6

What type of victim was Dulieu?

Answer 6

Primary as she witnessed the horror, was inside the danger zone and feared for one’s own immediate safety.

Question 7

How was the principle expanded in Hambrook v Stokes?

Answer 7

The defendant’s employee negligently secured a lorry, therefore it rolled down a hill to the corner where the children were walking

She feared that her children may have been injured, and coupled with a bystander telling her a child had been injured, she suffered mental injury.

People outside the zone of danger could recover for mental injury (we’d now call these people secondary victims) for fear for her children’s lives

For recovery to succeed, the claimant must have seen the event first hand first hand, not had the event communicated by others in any way

Question 8

Was the claimant outside of the scope of foreseeable harm in Bourhill v Young?

Answer 8

Yes, although Mrs Bournhill witnessed the immediate aftermath it failed on proximity. .

Question 9

Which case illustrated the concept of ‘immediate aftermath’?

Answer 9

McLoughlin v O’Brian

The mother immediately drove her to the hospital after being told about the crash. She saw her family suffering before they had been treated and cleaned up. As a result she suffered severe shock, organic depression and a personality change. She brought an action against the defendant for the psychiatric injury she suffered.

The House of Lords extended the class of persons who would be considered proximate to the event to those who come within the immediate aftermath of the event

Question 10

Was the claimant successful in Vernon v Bosely?

Answer 10

Yes.

The defendant had been driving the plaintiff’s daughters, but negligently caused an accident from which they died. The plaintiff was called to the accident, and claimed to have suffered post traumatic stress. The defendant said that the effect was explainable simply as grief.

HOWEVER damages were recoverable for nervous shock caused, or at least contributed to, constituting pathological grief disorder is a recognizable psychiatric illness and is recoverable.

Question 11

Which case highlights that phobias and insomnia are not recognised psychiatric injuries?

Answer 11

Reilly v Merseyside Regional Health Authority

The Claimants got trapped in the overcrowded lift for one hour and 20 minutes. At the time of the incident Mr Riley was 61 and had a pre-existing condition of angina, Mrs Riley was 68 and had a pre-existing condition of claustrophobia.

Claustrophobia and fear are normal emotions as oppose to injuries.

Question 12

Which case highlights that the ‘thin skull’ rule applies to primary victims?

Answer 12

Page V Smith

The claimant suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome before the accident however the incident caused the syndrome to worsen.

Provided some kind of personal injury was foreseeable it did not matter whether the injury was physical or psychiatric. There was thus no need to establish that psychiatric injury was foreseeable. Also the fact that an ordinary person would not have suffered the injury incurred by the claimant was irrelevant as the defendant must take his victim as he finds him under the thin skull rule.

Question 13

Which case outlined the rules for secondary victims

Answer 13

Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire

This case is the disaster that occurred at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield in the FA cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

South Yorkshire Police had been responsible for crowd control at the football match and had been negligent in directing an excessively large number of spectators to one end of the stadium which resulted in the fatal crush in which 95 people were killed and over 400 were physically injured. The scenes were broadcast live on television and were also repeated on news broadcasts. Sixteen claims were brought against the defendant for nervous shock resulting in psychiatric injury.

Question 14

What are the elements for Secondary Victims?

Answer 14

1. A close tie of love and affection to a primary victim
   mother father spouse child
2. Witness the event with their own unaided senses
3. Proximity to the event or its immediate aftermath
4. The psychiatric injury must be caused by a shocking event

Question 15

What are the elements for Primary Victims?

Answer 15

Defining the primary victim
A primary victim is a claimant who was directly involved as a participant in the incident that caused their psychiatric injury.

Classes of primary victim
Lord Oliver in Alcock v Chief Constable South Yorkshire provided three examples of claimants who he would classify as primary victims:

Direct involvement
The claimant was within the actual area of physical danger when the accident occurred or reasonably believed at the time that they were in danger.

Question 16

example of primary victims?

Answer 16

Other claimants who have succeeded as primary victims include:

•
a driver involved in a road traffic accident (where no physical injury was sustained but a physical injury was foreseeable)

•
a mother who gave birth to a severely disabled child as a result of the defendant’s negligence and suffered psychiatric injury as a result (on the basis that she had been at risk of, and indeed had suffered, some physical harm during the birth)

•
a mother who gave birth to a child who suffered hypoxic injury (the negligence occurred when the baby’s head had crowned but her body remained in the birth canal and she was, therefore, not a separate legal entity)

•
a police officer who suffered psychiatric injury after he was required to attach a tracking device to the bottom of a car belonging to a criminal gang who were drinking in a nearby pub at the time (the claimant had to repeat the operation nine times because the device was defective and physical injury was foreseeable because he could have been found and assaulted by the gang at any stage)

Question 17

What is classed as Psychiatric injury?

Answer 17

To succeed in a psychiatric illness or nervous shock claim the claimant must first prove that they have developed a psychiatric injury or illness which is more than temporary grief or fright. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are common examples of psychiatric illnesses which can lead to successful claims if their cause can be linked to the index event.

Question 18

Examples of recognised psychiatric illnesses?

Answer 18

Illnesses in respect of which the courts have made awards include:

•
depressive disorders eg reactive depression and morbid depression

•
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

•
adjustment disorders

•
anxiety disorders

•
chronic fatigue syndrome

•
pathological grief disorder (although note that normal feelings of grief after a death are not compensatable)

•
hysterical personality disorder

•
chronic pain syndrome (although this is sometimes regarded as a hybrid of physical and psychiatric injuries)