Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

• Published date: 16 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Personal Injury, Professional Negligence
• Law Firm: Ellisons Legal
• Author: Ellisons Legal

A recent decision in the Supreme Court restricts 'secondary victim' claims to those who witness an accident or serious injury but removes the requirements that a Claimant must witness a "sudden shock to the nervous system, caused by a "horrifying event".

Where claims from 'secondary victims' (relatives who either witness a loved one being seriously injured in a horrific accident or the aftermath following such an event) are concerned, the law has always been controversial.

Lord Oliver in the previously decided case of Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992], identified factors which he opined must apply in secondary victim cases to allow recovery by the Claimant. These have come to be known as the 'control mechanisms' imposed by the common law to define the limits of liability in such cases. In summary, to succeed a secondary victim must establish:

1. The close ties of love and affection between them and the primary victim
2. That their injury arose from a sudden and unexpected shock
3. That they were personally present at the scene or immediate aftermath
4. That their injury arose from witnessing the death, extreme danger to, or injury of the primary victim
5. That there must be "a close temporal connection between the event and the [secondary victim's] perception of it".

In a Judgment published on 11...