Injuries in UK Law

In an action for personal injuries the damages are always divided into two main parts. First, there is what is referred to as special damage which has to be specially pleaded and proved. This consists of out-of-pocket expenses and loss of earnings incurred down to the date of trial, and is generally capable of substantially exact calculation. Secondly, there is general damage which the law implies and is not specially pleaded.

The Appellant's injuries were mainly caused by burns, and it cannot be said that injuries from burns were unforeseeable. No doubt it was not to be expected that the injuries would be as serious as those which the Appellant in fact sustained. But a defender is liable, although the damage may be a good deal greater in extent than was foreseeable. He can only escape liability if the damage can be regarded as differing in kind from what was foreseeable.

First one has to ask whether, as between the alleged wrongdoer and the person who has suffered damage there is a sufficient relationship of proximity or neighbourhood such that, in the reasonable contemplation of the former, carelessness on his part may be likely to cause damage to the latter—in which case a prima facie duty of care arises.

The common law gives no damages for the emotional distress which any normal person experiences when someone he loves is killed or injured. Yet an anxiety neurosis or a reactive depression may be recognisable psychiatric illnesses, with or without psychosomatic symptoms. So, the first hurdle which a plaintiff claiming damages of the kind in question must surmount is to establish that he is suffering, not merely grief, distress or any other normal emotion, but a positive psychiatric illness.

Whilst I acknowledge the care which the Judge devoted to this case, I think that his conclusion was erroneous. It is true that in these days most defendants are insured and heavy awards do not ruin them. and large companies have to cover the claims by their premiums. If awards reach figures which are "daunting" in their immensity, premiums must be increased all the way round.

It is now too late for the courts to question or modify the rules that a cause of action accrues as soon as a wrongful act has caused personal injury beyond what can be regarded as negligible, even when that injury is unknown to and cannot be discovered by the sufferer; and that further injury arising from the same act at a later date does not give rise to a further cause of action.

As regards assessment of damages for non-economic loss in personal injury cases, the Court of Appeal creates the guide-lines as to the appropriate conventional figure by increasing or reducing awards of damages made by judges in individual cases for various common kinds of injuries.