“Psychiatric injury recoverable for witnessing or fearing harm to close family members.”
Mrs Hambrook saw a runaway lorry careering down a hill towards a school where her children were. She suffered shock from fear for her children's safety and died from the resulting illness.
Whether psychiatric injury could be recovered where the claimant feared for others' safety rather than their own personal safety.
The Court of Appeal held that damages could be recovered for psychiatric injury caused by witnessing or fearing harm to others, particularly close family members.
This case significantly expanded psychiatric injury law beyond the restrictive Dulieu approach, recognising that people could suffer compensable shock from witnessing harm to loved ones. It paved the way for modern secondary victim principles.
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OSCOLA Citation
Hambrook v Stokes Brothers [1925] 1 KB 141 (CA)
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