Law Weblog

Simmons v British Steel plc [2004] HL

Tuesday 4 May 2004 at 9:12 pm | In News | 1 Comment

[Tort – remoteness of damage – primary victim – foreseeable harm includes psychiatric reaction following initial injury]
D, the steel company that employed C. C fell and hit his head at work. He suffered depression and a pre-existing skin disease flared up, not because of the original injury “but from his anger at the happening of the accident” (lack of apology or support following the accident, and failing to prevent the accident when warned of the danger).

Held: C was entitled to compensation for the consequences of the accident and not just for the physical injuries.
C’s anger was neither de minims nor an intervening act.
C was “a primary victim” according to the classification in Page v Smith (1996).

A wrongdoer takes his victim as he finds him Smith v Leech Brain & Co Ltd [1962] CA.
There must now be added these further qualifications:
(1) that a defender is liable although the damage may be a good deal greater in extent than was foreseeable, as he can escape liability only if the damage can be regarded as differing in kind from what was foreseeable: Hughes v Lord Advocate (1963) HL; and
(2) where it is established that physical injury to the pursuer was foreseeable, it is unnecessary to ask whether it was foreseeable that he would also suffer psychiatric injury: Page v Smith [1996] HL.

The general rule is that it must be shown that the injury would not have occurred but for the act or omission of the defender. But if a number of factors contributed to the injury it is sufficient that the contribution which the factor attributable to the defender’s fault made to the injury was material: Wardlaw v Bonnington Castings Ltd [1956] HL.

C won
Whole case here