Alcock and Others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 03 May 1991 |
| Date | 03 May 1991 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Parker, Lord Justice Stocker and Lord Justice Nolan
Negligence - remoteness - damages for nervous shock - limiting class of claimant
A plaintiff who was not a parent or a spouse of a victim of the Hillsborough disaster could not bring a claim against the South Yorkshire Police for damages for nervous shock. Even the claims of those parents and spouses who suffered nervous shock as a result of watching the disaster on television would fail the test of proximity.
The Court of Appeal so stated dismissing the appeals of six plaintiffs unsuccessful at first instance, namely, Robert Alcock, Peter Coldicutt, Catherine Jones, Joseph Kehoe, John O'Dell and Alexandra Penk and allowing the cross-appeal of the defendant, Peter Wright, Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police, against nine of the ten successful plaintiffs, namely, Brian Harrison, Harold Copoc, Agnes Copoc, Maureen Mullaney, Karen Hankin, Brenda Hennessey, Denise Hough, Stephen Jones and Robert Spearitt.
The appeal arose from the decision of Mr Justice Hidden dated July 31, 1990 ([1991] 2 WLR 814) whereby he dismissed the claims of the six unsuccessful plaintiffs and gave judgment in favour of the ten successful plaintiffs. Leave to appeal was granted.
Mr Benet Hytner, QC and Mr Timothy R A King, QC, for the plaintiffs; Mr William Woodward, QC and Mr Patrick Limb for the chief constable.
LORD JUSTICE PARKER said that the appeal concerned 15 cases in which the plaintiffs claimed to be entitled to damages for nervous shock alleged to have been caused by negligence on the part of the South Yorkshire Police leading to the disaster at the Hillsborough Football Stadium on April 15, 1989.
The issue before the judge and the present court was a narrow one, whether any and which of the plaintiffs were entitled in law to recover damages should they hereafter prove that they suffered psychiatric illness from the facts set up. All questions of causation remained open.
The law as to liability for damages for nervous shock had developed over about a century from a rejection of any such claim through a series of stages until it came to be considered by the House of Lords in McLoughlin v O'BrianELR ([1983] AC 410).
Of the nine successful plaintiffs only one was at the scene of the catastrophe but he was not within the category of those then...
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Table of Cases
...for Trade [1983] 2 AC 394, [1983] 2 WLR 494, [1983] 1 All ER 910, HL 17 Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1992] 1 AC 310, [1991] 3 All ER 88, CA 192–193 Allan v Clibbery [2002] EWCA Civ 45, [2002] Fam 261, [2002] 2 WLR 1511, [2002] 1 All ER 865, CA 123–124, 141 Amstrad plc v Seag......