Bourhill v Young
A pregnant woman who heard a road accident and later saw blood on the road could not recover for nervous shock, because she was not within the range of foreseeable injury.
Facts
Mrs Bourhill, who was eight months pregnant, was getting off a tram in Edinburgh when a motorcyclist, Mr Young, drove past at speed and collided with a car about 50 feet away, out of her sight, and was killed. She heard the crash, and later went to the scene and saw blood on the road. She suffered nervous shock and her baby was stillborn. She sued Mr Young's estate.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held that Mr Young owed her no duty of care. Lord Macmillan said that a driver owes a duty of care to those whom he ought reasonably to foresee might be injured by his negligent driving. Mrs Bourhill was not within the area of potential danger, and it was not reasonably foreseeable that a person of ordinary fortitude in her position would suffer nervous shock. Lord Porter said that the driver of a car is entitled to assume that the ordinary frequenter of the streets has sufficient fortitude to endure such incidents as may from time to time be expected to occur in them.
Related cases on psychiatric injury
- Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310
- Barber v Somerset County Council [2004] UKHL 13, [2004] 1 WLR 1089
- Chadwick v British Railways Board [1967] 1 WLR 912
- Dulieu v White & Sons [1901] 2 KB 669
- Greatorex v Greatorex [2000] 1 WLR 1970
- Hambrook v Stokes Brothers [1925] 1 KB 141
- Hatton v Sutherland [2002] EWCA Civ 76, [2002] ICR 613
- McLoughlin v O'Brian [1983] 1 AC 410
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