Psychiatric Illness in Negligence
- Created by: cephillips
- Created on: 10-05-14 13:04
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- Psychiatric Illness - Negligence
- Courts will only compensate for medically recognized illnesses rather than claims for distress, sorrow or grief
- Also they are more likely to award Comp. if it has come from a physical injury - Attia v British Gas [1987]
- 4 Main Policy Considerations of the Courts
- 1. Difficulty in differentiating grief and pysch. illness
- 2. People "looking for" compensation
- 3. Floodgates of liability
- 4. Disproportionate liability concerns
- 4 Main Policy Considerations of the Courts
- 4 Main Policy Considerations of the Courts
- 1. Difficulty in differentiating grief and pysch. illness
- 2. People "looking for" compensation
- 3. Floodgates of liability
- 4. Disproportionate liability concerns
- Also they are more likely to award Comp. if it has come from a physical injury - Attia v British Gas [1987]
- Effect of the Type of Victim
- Primary Victims
- A victim who has reasonable feared for own safety and been placed in physical danger by D's negligence
- Provided physical harm is foreseeable. Pysch harm does not have to be - Paige v Smith [1996]
- Secondary Victims
- Witnesses or those involved in the immediate aftermath - Alcock v CC of South Yorkshire [1992]
- Pysch Illness must be reasonably foreseeable to a victim of normal fortitude - Bourhill v Young [1943]
- Alcock Control Mechanisms
- Lord Wilberforce 3 Criteria to restrict liability
- 1. Proximity of Relationship with immediate victim must be a "close relationship of love and affection"
- Only presumed for spouses, parents, children
- 2. Proximity in time and space to a "high degree" (see Gaili-Atkinson [2003] and note a live TV broadcast does not cover this (Alcock)
- 3. Sudden Shock - means by which the injury is caused - Sion v Hampsted HA [1994] "a coma is not a sudden shock so no liability" .
- Being informed of accident does not fulfill **
- But if you negligently give distressing news you may be liable - AB v Thameside and Glessop HA [1997]
- Being informed of accident does not fulfill **
- Primary Victims
- Impact of White v CC of South Yorkshire [1998]
- Employers: Duty to protect employees from pysch harm is no different from their duty to protect all people
- Unwitting agents: Difficult to argue you unwittingly harmed TP bc of D negligence but it is possible (W v Essex CC [2000]
- Rescuers
- WHo suffer physical injury is foreseeable [Haynes v Harwood 1935] and may even be owed a DoC if the one who is in danger isn't Videan [1963]
- Who sufer pyschiatric harm must've been placed into a real physical danger
- Can sue if because of D's negligence you believed you had hurt someone else - Dooley v Cammell [1971]
- Courts will only compensate for medically recognized illnesses rather than claims for distress, sorrow or grief
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