Hicks and Others v Wright (Sued as Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police)

For the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Bridge of Harwich I would dismiss this appeal.

The appellants are the parents of two girls, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, who died in the disaster at Hillsborough Football Stadium on 15 April 1989 when they were respectively 19 and 15 years of age. In this action they claim damages under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 for the benefit of the estate of each daughter of which they are in each case the administrators. The respondent is the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire who does not contest his liability to persons who suffered damage in the disaster. The basis of the claim advanced here is that at the moment of death Sarah and Victoria each had an accrued cause of action for injuries suffered prior to death which survived for the benefit of their respective estates. The action was tried by Hidden J. who held that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that either girl suffered before death any injury for which damages fell to be awarded. His decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeal (Parker, Stocker and Nolan L.JJ.). Appeal is now brought to your Lordships' House by leave of the Court of Appeal.

No one can feel anything but the greatest sympathy for the relatives of those who died in the disaster, the circumstances of which are now all too well known. The anguish of parents caused by the death in such a horrifying event of sons and daughters who were on the very threshold of life must indeed have been almost unbearable. But the common law has never awarded damages for the pain of bereavement. The Administration of Justice Act 1982 section 3(1), by substitution of section 1A of the Finance Act 1976, introduced such a claim for the first time in the fixed sum of £3,500 (subsequently increased by statutory instrument to £7,500) but only for the benefit of a spouse in respect of the death of the other spouse or for the benefit of parents in respect of the death of a minor child. The same Act, by section 1, abolished the right to an award of damages in a conventional sum for the benefit of the estate of the deceased under the Act of 1934 in respect of the deceased's loss of expectation of life, save to the limited extent provided by section 1(1)(b), which is not here relevant. Such conventional awards had long been felt to be anomalous. In respect of the deaths of Sarah and Victoria there was no dependency and hence no claim under the Fatal Accidents Acts. Thus, apart from a bereavement claim under the Act of 1982 in respect of Victoria, a claim for damages in respect of injuries suffered before death was the only claim which Mr. and Mrs. Hicks could bring.

This action and another action tried by Hidden J. at the same time, which also failed and has not been pursued beyond the Court of Appeal, were said to be test cases which would afford guidance in relation to other similar claims arising out of the Hillsborough disaster. We were assured by counsel, and I have no reason to doubt it, that the action was not brought for the sake of the money that may be awarded but rather to mark the anger of these parents and other bereaved relatives at what occurred. But whatever justification there may be for that anger has no relevance to damages in a civil action for negligence, which are compensatory, not punitive.

The difficulty which immediately confronts the...