Secondary Victims: a Race Between the Claimant and the Ambulance? - Brenna Conroy, Hardwicke
25/08/15. It is hard to escape the notion that the rise in the number of secondary victim claims in recent years owes its success to the amorphous concept of ‘proximity’. The test of proximity itself is well established: a secondary victim claimant can only establish a claim in law as a result of witnessing an event or its immediate aftermath. Establishing proximity does not pose much of a problem if the claimant has witnessed an accident itself; what remains controversial is defining the limit of “the event” and its “immediate aftermath”. Having looked at the decisions of the Courts on this issue, one would be forgiven for thinking that the boundaries are imposed somewhat arbitrarily.
A comparison of two cases illustrates this. In Taylorson v Shieldness Produce Ltd [1994] PIQR P329, CA a 14 year old boy suffered very severe head injuries when he was pulled beneath the wheels of an HGV. The parents were not present at the accident and therefore had to establish that they witnessed the immediate aftermath of the event. In fact, the parents learned of the accident very soon after it had occurred by telephone and a subsequent visit by the police. The parents drove to hospital where they were told that their son was being transferred to another hospital and were advised to follow the ambulance. When they arrived at the...
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