Nervous shock

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Nervous shock is a term used in English law to denote psychiatric illness or injury caused to a person by perception of events caused by the negligence of another; for example, witnessing an injury caused to one's parents or spouse. To amount to "nervous shock", the psychiatric damage suffered by the claimant must extend beyond grief or emotional distress to a recognised mental illness, such as anxiety neurosis or reactive depression. Although the term "nervous shock" has been described as "inaccurate" and "misleading" (Lord Keith and Lord Oliver, respectively, both in Alcock), it continues to be used as a useful abbreviation for a complex concept.

A primary victim (that is, a person who could foreseeably have been, injured as a result of another person's negligence) can also claim damages for nervous shock in addition to claiming damages for the physical injury. However, the courts have historically been slow to award damages for nervous shock to secondary victims (that is, a person to whom physical injury is not foreseeable) on the grounds that otherwise liability for nervous shock could go much wider than liability for the primary victims of negligence who suffer physical injuries. The courts have identified several requirements which are used to limit liability include:

The claimant must perceive a "shocking event" with their own unaided sense, as an eye-witness to the event, or hearing the event in person, or viewing the immediate aftermath. This requires close physical proximity to the event, and would usually exclude events witnessed by television or telephone. It also excludes cases where there is a gradual deterioration in the primary victim's condition, for example, in cases of medical negligence.
The claimant must have a "sufficiently proximate" relationship to a primary victim, usually described as a "close tie of love and affection". This usually rules out claims by bystanders; however, "rescuers" (such as firemen or policemen) who become involved in the events and thereby expose themselves to harm do not need to show a close personal relationship.
It must be reasonably foreseeable that psychiatric harm could be caused to a bystander. The closer the tie (parents and children, spouses), the more likely that harm would be caused.
A person with "reasonable firmness" would be affected, so claimants who are unusually susceptible to psychiatric harm cannot recover.

In one of the earliest cases, Victorian Railways Commissioners v. Coultas (1888) 1 3 App. Cas. 222, the Privy Council held that "Damages arising from mere sudden terror unaccompanied by any actual physical injury but occasioning a nervous or mental shock cannot under such circumstances, their Lordships think, be considered a consequence which, in the ordinary course of things, would flow from the negligence…" but this was not followed in a later case, Dulieu v. White [1901] 2 KB 669.

Currently leading cases include two House of Lords decisions arising from the Hillsborough disaster: