“Primary victims can recover for psychiatric injury without physical harm”
The House of Lords held that the defendant was liable. A person directly involved in an accident who suffers psychiatric injury is a primary victim, and the ordinary test of reasonable foreseeability of personal injury applies, without need to prove psychiatric injury was foreseeable.
The claimant suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome which had been in remission. Following a minor car accident caused by the defendant's negligence, where he was not physically injured but feared for his safety, his condition was triggered and became permanent.
Whether a duty of care is owed to avoid psychiatric injury to a person within the zone of physical danger who suffers no physical harm, and what test applies to primary victims in psychiatric injury cases.
Primary victims are those within the zone of physical danger who reasonably fear for their own safety. The distinction between physical and psychiatric injury is artificial - both constitute personal injury. The reasonable foreseeability test for physical injury suffices without requiring separate foreseeability of psychiatric harm.
This landmark decision established the primary/secondary victim distinction in psychiatric injury claims and made it significantly easier for primary victims to recover damages. It represents a major development in the law of negligence concerning mental harm.
Primary victims (those within range of foreseeable physical injury) can recover for psychiatric harm without needing to prove that such harm was specifically foreseeable, provided some physical injury was reasonably foreseeable.
The House of Lords held the defendant liable for the claimant's psychiatric harm because physical injury was foreseeable in the accident, making the claimant a primary victim.
It established the primary/secondary victim distinction that remains central to psychiatric harm claims, significantly expanding liability for primary victims while maintaining restrictions for secondary victims.
Lord Lloyd noted that the law should not distinguish between different types of personal injury, suggesting the artificial distinction between physical and psychiatric harm should be abandoned entirely.
OSCOLA Citation
Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL)
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[2026] EWHC 1095 (KB)
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