Court of Appeal reject secondary victim claim
A man’s attempt to sue an NHS Trust for psychiatric injury sustained from the shock of seeing his wife’s appearance in hospital has failed at the Court of Appeal.
In Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Ronayne [2015] EWCA Civ 588, the court held that Mr Ronayne was not entitled to damages as a secondary victim as the sight of his wife was not sufficiently “horrifying”.
Mr Ronayne’s wife went into hospital for a hysterectomy but a negligently misplaced suture caused her arms, legs and face to swell up. He described his shock at her looking like “the Michelin Man” and claimed he suffered post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
At trial, the judge rejected the diagnosis of PTSD but accepted that the “sudden shocking state” of Mr Ronayne’s wife in the 36 hours after her operation satisfied the “sudden shocking event” test for secondary injury, and awarded the claimant more than £9,000.
The Court of Appeal, however, found that the event was neither sudden nor sufficiently shocking and that the claimant’s psychiatric illness was not caused by that event. Lord Justice Tomlinson held that the period of 36 hours was not one event but “a series of events over a period of time”.
Joanne Hughes, senior associate at Hill Dickinson, who represented the NHS Litigation Authority and the NHS Trust, says: “To have allowed recovery in this case, would be to allow recovery for almost any person who developed a psychiatric disorder after witnessing their loved ones in a hospital setting following treatment for clinical negligence. Such a wide ambit for recovery would significantly increase the NHS’s liability for clinical negligence claims.”
Charles Bagot of Hardwicke chambers, a specialist in secondary victim cases, said the judgment was “an early front runner for the most important tort law case of 2015.
“It is good news for hard-pressed NHS Trusts defending claims by relatives shocked by the effect on loved-ones of acts of clinical negligence. Such claims will rarely succeed in the light of today’s decision.
“The decision refines, and arguably renders more strict, the control mechanisms for secondary victim claims which were shaped by the seminal House of Lords decisions arising out of the Hillsborough disaster, particularly Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310.”
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