McLoughlin v O'Brian

McLoughlin v O’Brian
Court	House of Lords
Date decided	6 May 1982
Citation(s)	[1983] 1 AC 410
Transcript(s)	Full text of judgment
Keywords
Negligence, psychiatric harm, proximity

McLoughlin v O’Brian [1983] 1 AC 410 is an English tort law case, decided by the House of Lords, dealing with the possibility of recovering psychiatric harm suffered as a result of an accident in which one's family was involved.

Facts

On the 19th October 1973, a friend came to the claimant's (plaintiff's) house to tell her of a serious accident involving her husband and three children, two hours after it had occurred. He drove her to the hospital where she saw her daughter dead and her husband and two other children seriously injured, all still covered in oil and mud. She suffered serious nervous shock as a result and sued the defendant who was responsible for the accident.

Earlier decisions in English courts had allowed victims to recover damages for emotional injury. This case was unique at the time because the claimant suffered injuries away from the scene of the accident and hours after the accident occurred.

This case is frequently examined by law students and students of legal philosophy. Legal scholar Ronald Dworkin used the case as subject matter in a hypothetical case examined by a fictional, ideal judge named Hercules in his book Law's Empire.

Judgment

The lower court said the injury to McLoughlin was not foreseeable and ruled against her. The case was appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals allowed the lower courts ruling to stand. McLoughlin appealed once more to the House of Lords.

The House of Lords (Lord Wilberforce delivering the leading speech) gave judgment in favour of the plaintiff. To recover nervous shock for somebody who was not directly involved in the accident, there had to be a close relationship between the plaintiff and the accident's victims. Furthermore, the plaintiff was to be in close proximity to the accident in time and place. The last condition was held to be fulfilled in a case where the plaintiff was not at the site of the actual accident, but had witnessed its immediate aftermath. This was held to be the case here: witnessing her dead daughter and badly injured family was for Mrs McLoughlin equivalent to being in the immediate aftermath of the disaster which had happened to them.

See also

• English tort law
• Nervous shock (English Law)

References