Dulieu v White & Sons [1901] 2 KB 669 A Case Summary
What are the facts of the case?
The defendant’s servant unintentionally drove a pair-horse van into a pub. The plaintiff, who was pregnant at the time, was in the pub that the defendant’s servant drove the pair-horse van into. She suffered nervous shock and subsequently gave birth to a premature and disabled baby.
In the High Court’s King’s Bench, the court had to decide the following:
Was the driver negligent?
If the driver had been negligent, did his negligence cause the plaintiff nervous shock which led to further bodily injury?
If the answer to question two was ‘yes’, ‘Could the plaintiff claim damages for these injuries or, were they too remote?’
In response to the first question, the court said the defendant was negligent.
They said the real question was,‘Could damages be sought as a result of the negligence, if the plaintiff did not incur physical damage, but mental injury?’
The previous court had dismissed the claim for the baby being born disabled, so this was not considered by the judges in the King’s Bench. However, the fact that the baby was born prematurely was considered in respect to this question.
What did the defendants argue?
The defendants argued that the damage was too remote. They relied heavily upon Victorian Railways v Commissioners. They argued that no action for negligence could be brought if there was no immediate physical injury to the plaintiff.
In other words, the incident did not directly or immediately cause physical injury to her. Instead, it was the nervous shock that the plaintiff suffered which led to the relevant physical injury, and this they argued, could not lead to a cause of action.
What did the court decide?
The plaintiff won. Her claim was not too remote. She was able to claim damages. The court did not follow the Privy Council’s decision in Victorian Railway Commissioners v Coultas.
They followed the Irish Exchequer case of Bell v Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland and decided that the plaintiff could recover damages in respect of the physical consequences of ‘nervous shock’ because of ‘reasonable fear of immediate personal injury to oneself’.
What is the significance of this case?
The case confirmed that claims could sometimes be made for physical injuries caused as a result of nervous shock. In an obiter dictum, Kennedy J said that liability for cases brought for pure psychiatric harm not consequential harm, were limited to the requirement that there ‘must be a shock which arises from a reasonable fear of personal injury to oneself’; thus suggesting that only primary victims, not secondary victims would be able to recover damages in these types of cases.
Watch a summary of the case here.