Sion v Hampstead Health Authority

Factual and Procedural Background

A young man was injured in a motor-cycle accident and admitted to a hospital administered by a health authority. His father, the Plaintiff, stayed at the hospital bedside for fourteen days until the son died. The Plaintiff alleges negligence by the hospital staff for failing to diagnose continuing bleeding, which allegedly caused the son's coma and subsequent death. The hospital denies negligence. The Plaintiff initially claimed damages under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 and the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934, but now pursues a claim for his own psychiatric injury caused by witnessing the son's deteriorating condition and death.

The Plaintiff commenced the action in a County Court, which was later transferred to the High Court. The hospital applied to strike out the claim as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. The strike-out application was granted by the trial judge, and the Plaintiff appealed with leave of the judge.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the Plaintiff’s claim for psychiatric injury caused by witnessing the son’s illness and death discloses a reasonable cause of action.
2. Whether the proposed amendment to the Statement of Claim should be allowed despite limitation period constraints.
3. Whether the Plaintiff must prove sudden shock to establish a claim for nervous shock under established law.
4. The proper role and weight of the medical report in a strike-out application.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The trial judge misapplied the principles governing striking out pleadings and should have allowed the amendment to the Statement of Claim.
• The judge wrongly treated the medical report as determinative of the cause of action rather than as evidence supporting injuries.
• The Plaintiff has an arguable case that the Defendant’s negligence caused shock-induced psychiatric illness.
• It is arguable that proving sudden or any shock is unnecessary if psychiatric illness as a result of negligence is shown.

Appellee's Arguments

• The amendment should not be allowed as it introduces a new cause of action outside the limitation period and is doomed to fail.
• The medical report is properly considered in a strike-out application and shows no sudden shock as required by law.
• The Plaintiff’s case lacks the necessary element of sudden shock or horrifying event to sustain a claim for nervous shock.
• Established legal principles limit recovery for psychiatric injury to cases involving sudden and violent shock, which is absent here.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court began by confirming that the applicable test for striking out is whether the claim is obviously doomed to fail, citing Lonrho PLC v. Fayed. It then considered whether the Plaintiff’s proposed amendment should be allowed despite limitation period concerns, concluding that amendments introducing causes of action arising from the same or substantially the same facts can be allowed at the court’s discretion.

The court reviewed the medical report, which outlined the Plaintiff’s psychiatric illness characterized by prolonged grief and depression but did not demonstrate the sudden shock required by established law. The report described a gradual process of awareness and emotional reaction rather than a sudden, horrifying event.

The court analysed the legal principles governing claims for nervous shock, relying heavily on the House of Lords decision in Alcock. It reaffirmed that recovery requires proof of psychiatric illness caused by sudden shock—defined as a sudden and direct appreciation by sight or sound of a horrifying event violently agitating the mind. Gradual accumulation of distress or grief does not suffice.

Although the Plaintiff sought to argue that sudden shock need not be proved, the court rejected this, distinguishing the present secondary victim claim from primary victim cases and noting that no current legal authority supports dispensing with the sudden shock requirement for secondary victims.

The court also addressed procedural objections, including the role of the medical report in a strike-out application. It held that the report, while primarily evidencing injury, is relevant in assessing whether the claim is doomed to fail at the pleading stage.

Applying these principles to the facts, the court found the Plaintiff’s claim clearly doomed to fail as it lacked the essential element of sudden shock. The Plaintiff’s psychiatric illness resulted from a prolonged and expected process rather than a sudden traumatic event.

Holding and Implications

The court DISMISSED THE APPEAL, affirming the trial judge’s decision to strike out the claim as disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

The direct effect of this decision is that the Plaintiff’s claim for psychiatric injury caused by witnessing the son’s illness and death cannot proceed under current law. The ruling does not establish new precedent but applies existing authoritative legal principles limiting recovery for nervous shock to cases involving sudden and direct appreciation of a horrifying event. The court acknowledged the possibility of future legal developments but held that it must apply the law as it presently stands.