THREE WEEK TIME LAPSE TOO REMOTE FOR SECONDARY VICTIM

The Court of Appeal dismissed a nervous shock claim by a daughter of a woman who died from a pulmonary emboli.  It was accepted that this complication was directly attributable to an injury sustained at work three weeks earlier and from which she was making an apparently good recovery.  The daughter did not see the original injury but she was present at her mother's death and suffered PTSD as a result.

In Taylor v A Novo (UK) Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 194 the Court of Appeal ruled that the three week interval between the original injury and its fatal sequelae broke the continuity necessary to establish legal proximity for a secondary victim. 

My case commentary is published in the Quarterly Bulletin of Butterworths Personal Injury Litigation Service.