Court case[1983] 1 AC 410

The plaintiff's husband and three of her children were in a car that was involved in a collision with a lorry, caused by the negligence of the defendants. The plaintiff was at home about two miles away. Some time later she was told of the accident by a motorist who had come upon it, and was taken to the hospital. There, about two hours after the accident, she saw her husband and two of her children before they had been cleaned up, covered in oil and mud, badly injured and in great distress, and was told that her youngest daughter had been killed. She suffered severe and lasting psychiatric illness, including depression and a change of personality. The trial judge and the Court of Appeal rejected her claim because she was not at or near the scene.

The House of Lords unanimously allowed the appeal. Lord Wilberforce held that the plaintiff's shock was foreseeable, and that the policy limits on liability were satisfied. He identified three elements limiting the duty: the class of persons whose claims should be recognised (the closest family ties, parent and child, husband and wife; ordinary bystanders excluded); the proximity of such persons to the accident in time and space, which includes those who come upon its immediate aftermath; and the means by which the shock is caused, which must be through sight or hearing of the event or its immediate aftermath, not merely being told of it. Lord Bridge, with whom Lord Scarman agreed in substance, preferred to rest liability on reasonable foreseeability alone. On either view the plaintiff succeeded.