Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Close relatives who suffer psychiatric injury from witnessing the death or injury of a relative from an illness negligently left undiagnosed by doctors cannot recover as secondary victims.
Facts
Mr Paul collapsed and died from a heart attack in the street, in front of his two young daughters, while they were out shopping. His heart disease had not been diagnosed by the hospital, which had negligently failed to carry out a test 14 months earlier. His daughters suffered psychiatric injury from witnessing his death. In two related appeals, relatives had witnessed the deaths of a child and a baby, after alleged medical negligence. The question was whether such claims could succeed as secondary victim claims.
Legal principle
The Supreme Court held, by a majority, that the claims could not succeed. Lord Leggatt and Lady Rose, giving the judgment of the majority, said that, in secondary victim cases, there must be an accident, meaning an external event which causes or risks causing injury to the primary victim, and that the claimant must witness it. A death from a disease, even if it was not prevented because of medical negligence, is not an accident in this sense. A doctor's duty of care to a patient does not extend to protecting members of the patient's family from the experience of witnessing the patient's death or injury. The majority also said that a secondary victim need not show that the illness was caused by a sudden shock. Lord Burrows dissented.
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
- Bourhill v Young [1943] AC 92
- 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
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