It is well known that a claim for compensation can be made when someone suffers physical injury after being directly involved as the victim of a negligent act.
For example, the majority of people know that a driver injured as the result of a road traffic accident or a person who slips on a wet office floor may have a case to personal injury claim. Such claimants are known as ‘primary victims’.
What is less known is that successful claims for compensation can also be made when someone is not directly involved in the incident, but instead suffers psychological injuries by witnessing or being involved in the immediate aftermath of an incident, which has involved the primary victim.
This, for example, could be someone who rushes to the scene of a serious accident involving their daughter, who has been badly injured.
The courts use a specific ‘test’ to ascertain if somebody is eligible to make a claim as a ‘secondary victim’, and the case law for this test dates back to the Hillsborough football tragedy in 1989. The civil claims that followed Hillsborough came to court in 1991 in the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of Yorkshire Police.
The court decided that, in order to be entitled to make a successful claim as a secondary victim, a Claimant must satisfy all of the following four criteria;
- There must be close ties of love and affection to the primary victim: The closer the relationship between the primary and secondary victim, the better the chances of overcoming this hurdle of the test. For example, a close relationship between father and son is likely to be deemed as stronger than one between two cousins or a family friend.
- The person must have come across the ‘immediate aftermath’ of the event: The amount of time that has passed between the accident taking place and when the secondary victim actually witnesses the event is crucial. As a general rule of thumb, the longer the period of time, the less the chance of the claim being successful. For example, attending the scene of a roadside accident minutes after it took place is much more likely to lead to a successful claim than just visiting the primary victim in hospital the following day.
- The person must have witnessed the harm to the primary victim with their own unaided senses: It is very unlikely that this part of the test will be passed when the secondary victim has simply been informed of the event by phone or has merely witnessed it on television. The secondary victim must usually have seen the immediate aftermath of the event by being there in person.
- Psychiatric injury must have been suffered as a result of the shocking event: The secondary victim must show that their psychiatric injuries were caused by the witnessing of the event. Often a medical report from an independent psychiatrist will the person best placed to comment on this important factor.
Overall, despite there being guidance on the type of secondary victim claims that will and will not be successful, there is, frustratingly, a lack of specificity in terms of the relationships, time periods and proximity which can make this legal area somewhat confusing.
However, there is no strict interpretation of the test as the circumstances of each case are usually so different to the next, so it is always worth seeking specialist legal advice to consider whether you may have a ‘secondary victim’ claim for compensation.
Personal Injury Compensation Claims
Personal injury is the term used for an injury or illness that has been caused or made worse by someone else’s negligence. In basic terms, negligence means that another party owed a duty of care and ‘breached’ that duty of care resulting in some foreseeable injury being sustained.
Personal injury includes both physical and psychological injuries. The majority of negligence cases involving personal injury arise from accidents at work, in public places, or on the road.
Hudgell Solicitors’ specialist personal injury lawyers have been successfully supporting clients in recovering compensation for over two decades and they are here to help you too. Our personal injury experts will discuss and review your situation, give you the time and space to talk to us, and make the claims process simple to understand.
The first thing you need to do to make an injury claim is to get in touch with us using our online personal injury claim form.