The plaintiff, a lady with a hysterical personality disorder since childhood, had a minor taxi accident and then developed a major psychiatric illness – bizarre behaviour, suicide attempts, pleading with people to cut her head off – in response to a minor traffic accident.
Held: She was of normal fortitude. A claim for nervous shock is not actionable unless the plaintiff incurs psychiatric damage which is caused by the tortfeasor as part of a breach of a duty owed by him to the plaintiff. Only then must the defendant bound to take the victim as he finds him.
Stuart-Smith J said that the phrase ‘nervous shock’ is a ‘convenient phrase to describe mental injury or psychiatric illness to distinguish it from, on the one hand, grief and sorrow and, on the other hand, physical or organic injury. The psychiatric illness does not have to have any particular label or term of art applied to it.’
Judges:
Stuart-Smith J
Citations:
[1984] 1 All ER 997, [1984] 1 WLR 997
Cited by:
Cited – White, Frost and others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and others HL 3-Dec-1998
No damages for Psychiatric Harm Alone
The House considered claims by police officers who had suffered psychiatric injury after tending the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy.
Held: The general rules restricting the recovery of damages for pure psychiatric harm applied to the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Personal Injury
Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.184752
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