Landmark Supreme Court decision on secondary victims (Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust)

Article summary

PI & Clinical Negligence analysis: In a seminal judgment, the UK Supreme Court by a 6–1 majority (Lord Burrows dissenting) has dismissed the claimants’ conjoined appeals against the strike out of their psychiatric injury claims from witnessing the death of close relatives from the defendants’ alleged (or admitted) clinical negligence. The Supreme Court has decided that a claimant cannot recover damages as a secondary victim unless the claimant witnessed an accident (or its immediate aftermath) caused by the Defendant’s negligence. A claim cannot succeed where what is witnessed is a negligently caused medical crisis (or its immediate aftermath) which involves the suffering or death of a close relative from illness, but no external accident. Central to the decision was the Supreme Court Justices’ view that it cannot be right to attribute to a doctor who enters into doctor-patient relationship, an assumption of responsibility for the health of members of the patient’s family. Written by Charles Bagot...