Psychiatric harm
- Created by: Brodie
- Created on: 16-04-15 18:47
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- Duty of care: psychiatric harm
- Physical injury - can claim for emotional/mental consequences
- Hicks v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire - 30 minutes was too short
- Roberts v Lestrange - 4 days was long enough
- Pure psychiatric harm
- McLoughlin v O'Brian - must be a recognisable psychiatric illness
- Nicholls v Rankin - shaken up after RTA insufficient
- Reilly v Merseyside -claustrophobia with physical symptoms insufficient
- Primary victims
- 1) Foreseeability
- Page v Smith - provided personal injury foreseeable a duty of care can arise
- Grieves v F T Everard & Sons and others - confirmed Page
- Thin skull rule - can succeed if some person personal injury is foreseeable to an ordinary person, even if injury is greater (Page/Brice v Brown)
- 2) Zone of danger
- Grieves F T Everard & Sons and others - anxiety foreseeable but not psychiatric harm
- Primary victims confined to - 1) those who suffer fear/distress causing psychiatric harm as a result of fear from being in an accident 2) psychiatric harm suffered as a result of events that have happened
- Duty can arise if claimant isn't in danger but fears he is if fear is genuine and defendant can reasonably foresee that a person of ordinary fortitude in claimants position would suffer psychiatric harm
- Young v Charles Church (Southern) Ltd - can be in zone of danger through fear of injury to someone else
- Grieves F T Everard & Sons and others - anxiety foreseeable but not psychiatric harm
- 1) Foreseeability
- Secondary victims
- 1) Shock
- Sion v Hampstead HA - deterioration over 2 weeks not sufficient
- Tredget v Bexley HA - death of baby two days after birth sufficient
- Walters v North Glamorgan NHS Trust - death of baby 36 hours later sufficient
- 2) Foreseeability
- Bourhill v Young - train accident occurred behind her, not reasonably foreseeable
- If psychiatric harm is reasonable to a person of normal fortitude, a person of abnormal susceptibility can recover the full extent (Brice v Brown)
- Must show psychiatric harm reasonably foreseeable to a person of normal fortitude/customary phlegm
- 3) Proximity
- Proximity of relationship
- Alcock - close tie of love and affection (rebuttable presumption)
- Robertson and Rough v Forth Bridge Joint Board - workmate for 40 years insufficient
- Proximity of time and space
- Alcock - must witness distressing event or come upon "immediate aftermath"
- McLoughlin v O'Brian - family at hospital still in state of accident so sufficient
- Alcock - identifying bodies 9 hours later too long
- Taylor v Somerset HA - injury must result from distressing event rather than death
- Proximity of perception
- Palmer v Tees HA - must actually see/hear the event first hand
- Proximity of relationship
- Rescuers
- Monk v P C Harrington Ltd & others - treated as primary victims if in zone of physical danger
- White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police - otherwise treated as secondary victims
- Chadwick v British Railways Board - neither primary or secondary victim but still able to claim
- 1) Shock
- Physical injury - can claim for emotional/mental consequences
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