Secondary Victim Claims: Application For Strike Out Succeeds

In the recent case of Paul v Wolverhampton Health Authority [2019] EWHC 2893, the defendant was successful in its application for strike out of two secondary victims claims.

This was a very sad case in which the deceased, Parminder Singh Paul, was admitted to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton in November 2012 after complaining of chest and jaw pain. He was provided with treatment for acute coronary syndrome but few cardiac investigations were performed. Nearly fourteen months later it was recommended that he undergo an elective coronary angiography, but sadly, on 26 January 2014, he collapsed in the street in front of his two young daughters, and passed away.

The primary claim made on behalf of the deceased's estate was that appropriate investigations were not arranged during the admission in November 2012 and had the same occurred, he would not have died in January 2014. His two daughters also brought claims as secondary victims after the claimants' expert Psychiatrist concluded that each presented with symptoms of PTSD caused by witnessing the events surrounding his death.

For the purposes of this application, both parties agreed that the claimants would satisfy three of the four control mechanisms set out in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310. The only mechanism in dispute was whether the claimants were in close proximity in space and time to the relevant event or its immediate aftermath.

There was no suggestion that either of the daughters had witnessed the events during the deceased's hospital admission in November 2012. Therefore it was agreed that the "event" was the heart attack and his subsequent death.

The defendant relied on the unsuccessful claim of Taylor v Somerset Heath Authority [1993] 4 Med LR 34 in which the claimant had not witnessed the failures to diagnose and treat her late husband's gradual worsening heart condition, nor his heart attack or subsequent death, but was instead told of her husband's death shortly after it occurred. The Court held that the deceased's death, his wife being informed of the same and her viewing the body was not the relevant "event" or its "immediate aftermath". In the present case, the defendant argued that similar circumstances arose, and therefore these claims were bound to fail for want of proximity.

In contrast, the claimant argued that in the case of Taylor, the claimant did not witness the collapse or death of her husband at all which differed from the...