Background law (Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310 HL) – Subject to satisfying the other criteria in Alcock, this is why a duty is readily imposed where a secondary victim witnesses an accident caused by a defendant. Summary: Alcock (the Claimant) and other claimants brought a joint claim against the South Yorkshire Police. They would need to satisfy strict eligibility criteria to claim. In order to recover damages as a secondary victim a claimant must fulfil the well know criteria set out in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310, namely that: But the Alcock case, which went all the way to the House of Lords’ Judicial Committee, imposed a series of “control mechanisms” to fetter a victim’s ability to bring a claim. This … Lord Oliver distinguished between primary and secondary victims to clarify the law and establish mechanisms to scrutinise secondary victims claims. Witness the event with their own unaided senses. Alcock needs unstitching It seems obvious that the effect of what they saw would have been profound and damaging. The individual must: have a relationship of love and affection with the victim; come across the ‘immediate aftermath’ of the event; have direct perception of the harm to the primary victim; … The Alcock decision was issued by the House of Lords in 1992 and its principles remain central to the law. Recent cases have addressed the categories of secondary victim and the criteria relating to proximity; arguably reducing the scope for secondary victim claims on clinical negligence matters. Rule 3: It is almost impossible to win a secondary victim claim. Secondary victims must demonstrate the four Alcock criteria are present in order to establish liability: 1. The recent High Court decision in YAH -v- Medway NHS Foundation Trust is a helpful reminder of the principles to be considered when deciding the 'status' of an injured party and the importance of getting it right. Alcock criteria liability Liability for Psychiatric Harm Secondary victim Tort law; Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1992] 1 AC 310 is Tort Law case concerning a secondary victim of psychiatric harm. Psychiatric injury—secondary victims Practice notes. But this wasn’t taken forward and the courts still refer back to the Alcock test as main … Published 21 noviembre 2018. Since the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of Yorkshire Police was decided following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, it has been well established that certain criteria must be met by the Claimant, to successfully bring a compensation claim for psychiatric injury as a secondary victim. Rule 4: Your best hope is to make your client a primary victim. [2] Hillsborough Ultimately, the court pinpointed the relevant point in time as when the negligence occurred, which, in this case, began when RE’s body remained in … In Alcock, Lord Oliver identified several elements which had been found in the reported cases to be the essential criteria for a successful secondary victim claim, including most fundamentally (as recently emphasised in Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Ronayne , hereafter referred to as Ronayne) that … A close tie of love and affection to a primary victim. To decide whether Alcock … This was a very sad case in which the deceased, Parminder Singh Paul, was admitted to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton in … Criteria for cases involving secondary victims is set down in the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police (“the Hillsborough case”) and requires:- that the psychiatric injury is caused by ‘shock’ from ‘the sudden appreciation by sight or by sound of a horrifying event, which violently agitates the mind’; The article examines the evidence for the threshold requirement that distress must qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis to be actionable, and for the Alcock secondary victim criteria. The so-called ‘control mechanisms’ from McLoughlin v O’Brian [1983] 1 A.C. 410 and Alcock v Chief Constable South Yorkshire Police [1992] A.C. 310 are additional criteria keeping the gates to successful claims for secondary victims. If the defendant’s self-inflicted injuries caused that third party psychiatric injury, the … SMQ Legal solicitors lead by the Partner, Suezanne King, are actively involved in the interpretation of the secondary victim criteria, set by the case of Alcock, and analyse here by Suezanne’s team when and where this criteria requires extension to include a wider category of claimant given how ‘proximity’ no longer … 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.. The claimants were all classed as secondary victims since they were not in the physical zone of danger. The claimants were all classed as secondary victims since they were not in the physical zone of danger. An entirely different set of rules and criteria are applied for primary or secondary … Following the Hillsborough cases (Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310.) The criteria for a claim for psychiatric injury by a secondary victim is cited in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992]. Of course, if this is the case, Rack & Horse Lighting will be liable in full (assuming Hannah fulfils the criteria of a primary and/or secondary victim), even though a particular vulnerability or susceptibility means that the claimant suffers much greater psychiatric harm than might have been anticipated (Brice v Brown [1984]). Maintained • . A secondary victim is one who suffers psychiatric injury not by being directly involved in the incident but by witnessing it and either: • seeing injury being sustained by a primary victim, or • fearing injury to a primary victim. It submitted that as a secondary victim the Claimant could only recover if her injury had been caused by shock, citing the criteria set out in the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. in order for a ‘secondary victim’ to qualify for a damages award he/she must: have suffered a ‘reasonably foreseeable’ psychiatric injury; have had a close personal relationship with the primary victim (either a … directly Since Alcock the courts have strictly applied these criteria as claimants have sought to widen the scope of secondary victim claims beyond that originally envisaged. ... For a duty to be owed to protect a secondary victim from psychiatric harm, the following criteria must be met: The claimant must share a close tie of love and affection with someone injured or killed in the event; A close tie of love and affection . The outcome provides further clarity on the proximity test arising from the Alcock control mechanisms particularly in clinical negligence omission cases. A primary victim is a victim who is directly involved in an accident and suffers injuries as a result of the fault of a tortfeasor. 3. In the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1992] 1 AC 310, brought by relatives … It was agreed between the parties that the only issue was whether they could … A primary victim didn’t owe a duty of care to a third party which in this instance was the emergency services. 2. It is arbitrary and unfair. Joseph McCaughley, Litigation Solicitor at Medical Protection, looks at his recent successful defence of a member against a secondary victim claim for psychiatric injury. 1. The leading House of Lords decision on nervous shock is Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 A.C. 310, which followed the disaster at Hillsborough football ground in 1999. Control mechanisms For secondary victims to succeed in a claim for psychiatric harm they must meet the following criteria: 1. 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