House of Lords · Unanimous: appeal allowed; Lords Wilberforce, Edmund-Davies, Russell, Scarman and Bridge
Facts
Mrs McLoughlin's husband and children were in a road accident caused by the negligence of a lorry driver. Her youngest daughter was killed and the others injured. She was at home about two miles away and was told by a friend, then taken to hospital where, about two hours after the accident, she saw her husband and children in a distressing condition, with their injuries untreated, and learned that her daughter had died. She suffered severe and persisting psychiatric illness.
History
Her claim was dismissed at first instance and by the Court of Appeal, and she appealed to the House of Lords.
Issue
Whether a person who was not at the scene of an accident but who suffered psychiatric illness from seeing its immediate aftermath at hospital could recover in negligence from the person who caused it.
Held
Appeal allowed. The defendants owed Mrs McLoughlin a duty of care and she could recover damages for her psychiatric illness.
Ratio
- A plaintiff who suffers psychiatric injury from witnessing the immediate aftermath of an accident to a close relative may recover, since such injury was reasonably foreseeable and the circumstances fell within the limits of the aftermath.
- Their Lordships differed on whether limits on recovery for psychiatric injury rest on policy or on foreseeability alone, so there is no single reasoning shared by all, but all agreed that on the facts she could recover.
The judgments
Lord Wilberforce (lead)
Considered that policy limits were necessary, listing the class of person whose claims should be recognised, closeness in time and space to the accident or its aftermath, and the means by which the shock was caused, and held that Mrs McLoughlin satisfied them.
Lord Bridge of Harwich (concurring)
Considered that reasonable foreseeability of psychiatric illness was enough, that the judge should decide it without separate policy limits, and that her injury was foreseeable.
Lord Scarman (concurring)
Emphasised that the courts should resist adding policy-based limits to foreseeability, which was for Parliament, and held that the injury here was foreseeable.
Key reasoning
- Psychiatric illness from shock is a recognised kind of damage for which a duty can be owed if it was reasonably foreseeable in a person of normal fortitude.
- To avoid indefinitely wide liability, the claim must be limited by the relationship between the plaintiff and the victim, by proximity in time and space, and by the manner in which the plaintiff learned of the event, and the aftermath at the hospital fell within these limits.
Where it fits in the module
For FHS Tort, McLoughlin is a starred case on psychiatric injury and on the role of policy in setting the limits of the duty of care. It brings out the divide between those who would rely on foreseeability alone and those who add control mechanisms, and so it is the starting point for the debate which led to Alcock, White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1999] 2 AC 455 and, more recently, Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1.
Criticisms
- Lord Wilberforce's policy limits are not derived from principle and they were later treated as rigid rules, which produced arbitrary distinctions between claimants who witness the event and those who see only the aftermath.
- The reliance on proximity in time and space rewards claimants who happen to be near the scene and disregards the severity of the harm to those who are not.
- A foreseeability-only approach, as favoured by Lord Bridge, would open the way to claims by any person who suffered shock and so would impose liability disproportionate to the fault of the defendant.
Written with AI (claude-sonnet-5.5 (Claude Code writer)) on 1 November 2026, reviewed for errors by a second model (claude-sonnet-5.5 (Claude Code checker)). Read the case itself at [1983] 1 AC 410. Spotted an error? Tell us.