Recent Judicial Decisions
| Author | Rob R. Jerrard |
| Published date | 01 April 1997 |
| Date | 01 April 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X9707000214 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ROB R. JERRARD, LLB, LLM
Legal Correspondent for The Police Journal
RECENT JUDICIAL DECISIONS
Some Rescuers can Recover - Even Police Officers
Frost and Others v. ChiefConstable
of
South Yorkshire Police and Others
Court of Appeal
(1996) The Times, November 6
The facts
Rose, LJ (Henry, LJ, agreeing) said that the immediate cause
of
the
Hillsborough stadium disaster in Sheffield on April 15, 1989 was a senior
police officer's decision to open an outer gate without cutting off access
to the pens. Liability for the deaths and injuries of the spectators was
admitted by the defendants, the first
of
whom was the plaintiffs' chief
constable.
The defendants admitted negligence but disputed the existence
of
any
duty to the plaintiffs. It was not in issue that the plaintiffs all sustained Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Liability had been admitted and damages assessed in relation to 14
police officers who either entered the pens or were active at the fence. The
roles played by the present plaintiffs represented the different types of
activity carried out by the remaining 23 claimants.
Two grounds were argued on appeal: first, breach of duty
of
care by
the chief constable, arising from the plaintiffs' service as police officers
when acting under his direction and control; second, breach of a duty owed
to them as rescuers. The Judge had found (see (1995) The Times, July 3)
as to the first ground, that a relationship analogous to master and servant
existed between the chief constable and the plaintiffs, giving rise to a duty
of care embracing psychiatric illness, but that duty did not arise where the
police officer was a secondary victim, unless he could succeed as a rescuer
and such a duty could not place a police officer in a better position than
abystander. As to the second ground, he had found that only Inspector
White was a rescuer in law and he could not recover since, being a
professional rescuer not intimately participating in the rescue itself or in
the immediate aftermath, it would be unattractive and not
just
and
reasonable that he could recover whereas abystander could not.
Lord Lloyd's categorization of primary and secondary victims in Page v.
Smith [1966]
lAC
155 did not expressly or by implication have the rescue
cases in mind - indeed, none of them was cited either in the speeches or
in argument. In any event, the present plaintiffs (apart from Smith who was
not at the ground until long after the event), being directly involved in the
course of their employment, in the consequences flowing from their
employer's negligence, were primary victims. Lord Lloyd's observation
"There is no justification for regarding physical and psychiatric injury as
different 'kinds'
of
injury" was a generally applicable statement
of
the
current law.
If
firemen should not be at any disadvantage in relation to
/72
The Police Journal
April/997
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