Flashcards
lecture 11 + 12
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1Chadwick v British Railways Board (In addition to PTSD, courts have awarded damages where symptoms included “depression”.)This case arose from a horrific train crash in Lewisham in which 90 people were killed and many more were seriously injured. Mr Chadwick lived 200 yards from the scene of the crash and attended the scene to provide some assistance. He worked many hours through the night crawling beneath the wreckage bringing aid and comfort to the trapped victims. As a result of what he had witnesses he suffered acute anxiety neurosis and received treatment as an inpatient for 6 months.
Held:
His estate was entitled to recover. The defendant owed Mr Chadwick a duty of care since it was reasonably foreseeable that somebody might try to rescue the passengers and suffer injury in the process. - 2McLoughlin v O’Brian [1983] (“personality change”) “Experience has shown that to insist on direct and immediate sight or hearing would be impractical and unjust and that under what may be called the " aftermath " doctrine, one who, from close proximity comes very soon upon the scene, should not be excluded…. and by way of reinforcement of " aftermath " cases, I would accept, by analogy with " rescue " situations, that a person of whom it could be said that one could expect nothing else than that he or she would come immediately to the scene—normally a parent or a spouse, could be regarded as being within the scope of foresight and duty. Where there is not immediate presence, account must be taken of the possibility of alterations in the circumstances, for which the defendant should not be responsible.Subject only to these qualifications, I think that a strict test of proximity by sight or hearing should be applied by the courts."The claimant’s husband and three of her children were involved in a serious road traffic accident in which their car was struck by a lorry due to the negligence of the defendant lorry driver. Unfortunately one of the children was killed on impact. An ambulance took the injured parties to hospital. Another of the claimant’s sons was a passenger in a car behind the family. The driver took him home and told his mother of the incident and immediately drove her to the hospital. 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 Court of Appeal held that no duty of care was owed. She appealed to the House of Lords.
Held:
The appeal was allowed and the claimant was entitled to recover for the psychiatric injury received. 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. - 3Dulieu v White [1901] The shock, where it operates through the mind, must be a shock which arises from a reasonable fear of immediate personal injury to oneself.”Publican’s wife suffered severe fright when horse-drawn van crashed through window of bar where she was working. She was pregnant at the time and suffered a miscarriage.
Held:An action could lie in negligence for nervous shock arising from a reasonable fear for one’s own immediate safety. Liability was restricted to shock, arising from reasonable fear of immediate personal injury to oneself.
Kennedy J: “If impact be not necessary, and if, as must be assumed here, the fear is proved to have naturally and directly produced physical effects, so that the ill results of the negligence which caused the fear are as measurable in damages as the same results would be if they arose from an actual impact, why should not an action for those damages lie just as well as it lies where there has been an actual impact ? - 4Hambrook v Stokes (Fear for relatives and friends)damages awarded where mother, fearing for the safety of her children at the sight of a lorry careering towards them, suffered nervous shock and died as a result. She was told that a girl wearing glasses had been injured, and took this to be her daughter, although it wasn’t. She witnessed incident with her own unaided senses – a theme developed in McLoughlin v O’Brian and refined in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire
- 5Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1991]This case arose from the disaster that occurred at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield in the FA cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in 1989. 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. claims were brought against the defendant for nervous shock resulting in psychiatric injury. The appeals were dismissed.
Lord Oliver set out the distinction between primary and secondary victims. A primary victim one involved mediately or immediately as a participant and a secondary victim one who is no more than a passive and unwilling witness of injury to others. The claimants were all classed as secondary victims since they were not in the physical zone of danger. - 6Bourhill v Young [1943] (“Area of Shock” theory. Damages recoverable so long as C was within the foreseeable area of shock)C, pregnant Edinburgh fishwife, alighted from tram and heard impact from serious accident 500 yards away, on other side of road, outside her line of vision. She miscarried. Claim for nervous shock failed: outside area of impact and, as unknown to motorcyclist involved in accident, outside area of foresight of shock. Also, as a pregnant woman, she was not considered to be a person of “normal fortitude”.
- 7Brice v Brown [1984]girl and mother injured in accident in taxi. Mother, emotionally unstable, suffered nervous shock. Refined the test of “normal fortitude” – would a person of ordinary phlegm or fortitude have suffered nervous shock in these circumstances? If not, then no claim. If yes, C could recover for full extent of shock, even if person of “customary phlegm” wouldn’t have suffered shock to that extent. This provides a more objective standard than that in Bourhill v Young.
- 8Page v Smith [1996]C was involved in car accident and therefore was a primary victim. He suffered no physical injuries, but was able to claim for non-physical, neurological injury (recurrence of myalgic encephalomyelitis: M.E.). Some form of personal injury must be foreseeable in order for C to be a primary victim, but it is unnecessary to show that injury by shock was foreseeable
- 9McLoughlin v O’Brian [1983]C, wife of family involved in car crash, at home 2 miles away from scene of accident. Driven to hospital, saw badly injured son, daughter and husband; second daughter killed in accident. C suffered depression and personality change. D, driver of other car, liable. Lords Bridge and Scarman adopted foreseeability test, unrestricted by legal limitations. Lord Wilberforce - 3 elements in claim: a) relationship between C and primary victim(s), e.g. close family tie; b) proximity of C in time and space – “immediate aftermath” will suffice; c) shock resulting from being told by 3rd party of accident will not be compensated.
- 10See North Glamorgan NHS Trust v Walters [2002] EWCA Civ 1792C, mother of baby, witnessed last distressing 36 hours of his life. Baby admitted to hospital; D failed to diagnose hepatitis; baby had epileptic fit and choked on blood; transferred to another hospital for liver transplant; suffered brain damage and put on life support machine; next day C agreed to turning off machine; baby died. C suffered “pathological grief reaction”. C secondary victim with close tie of love and affection to primary victim. D argued that 36-hour period of stress was insufficiently sudden. C of A dismissed D’s appeal: “a seamless tale with an obvious beginning and obvious end”. Proximity of time and space satisfied.
- 11white v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1999]this case arose from the disaster that occurred at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield in the FA cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in 1989. 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. Whilst Alcock, involved claims by relatives, this case involved claims for psychiatric injury from police officers who were on duty that day . Their claims differ from those in Alcock, in that they based their claims on the grounds that as employees, the defendant owed them a duty of care not to cause them psychiatric injury as a result of negligence, alternatively they claim as rescuers, which they argued promoted them to primary victims as oppose to secondary victims. At trial Waller J dismissed the claims on both grounds. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision. The Defendant appealed to the House of Lords.
Held:
Th - 12Rescuers. Chadwick v British Railways Boardpasser-by who assisted in rescue at scene of rail disaster suffered nervous shock and committed suicide. C, a small man, able to crawl through crushed wreckage of carriages and administer pain-killing injections to injured. He knew none of the victims but witnessed horrific sights. Extension of liability towards rescuers who come upon an accident and assist in rescuing in immediate aftermath. C could recover because he might have been injured by wrecked carriage collapsing on him as he worked among the injured.
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- Law Flashcards on lecture 11 + 12 , created by Kirsty Dcosta on 29/11/2016.
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- Kirsty Dcosta
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