LAWS1003 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Mount Isa Mines, Urban Transit Authority, Cerebos
Document Summary
The common law has traditionally been reluctant to recognise pure psychiatric injury as a compensable kind of damage, primarily because of concerns about imaginary and pretend claims. The initial approach of the common law courts, therefore, was to hold that pure psychiatric injury (or nervous shock) was not a kind of damage recognised by the common law. Victorian railways commissioners v coultas (1888) 13 app cas 222. The high court has since held that the factual circumstances of a close and loving relationship between the plaintiff and the victim mean that it was reasonably foreseeable that they would suffer a pure psychiatric injury. Whether a duty of care will be owed in relation to pure psychiatric injury is now governed by the same general principles as other negligence actions. To prove a duty of care, the plaintiff must establish that they are suffering a recognised psychiatric i(cid:374)ju(cid:396)y that is the (cid:396)easo(cid:374)a(cid:271)ly fo(cid:396)eseea(cid:271)le (cid:272)o(cid:374)se(cid:395)ue(cid:374)(cid:272)e of the defe(cid:374)da(cid:374)t(cid:859)s (cid:374)eglige(cid:374)t a(cid:272)t o(cid:396) o(cid:373)issio(cid:374).
