Defendant caused a car crash and Plaintiff, his father, was one of the firemen called to get Defendant out of the car, as a result of which Plaintiff suffered a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and sued Defendant for negligently causing him the illness.
CA held that a person does not owe a duty of care to a 3rd party who might suffer psychiatric illness from seeing the self-inflicted injuries.
To impose such a duty would be to limit individual freedom too far (and deter people from using the emergency services, even in an emergency where they have severe injuries).
It would also make litigation within the family very common (e.g. I am fixing the roof and negligently fall off - law shouldn’t disrupt the accidents which are part of family life), which is undesirable.
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Tort Law | Negligence Psychiatric Injuries Notes (5 pages) |