PI Brief Update

Trust Issues: MIM v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Secondary Victims of 'Medical Mishaps' - Georgina Pressdee, Temple Garden Chambers

21/05/26. On 17 March 2026, Her Honour Judge Claire Evans handed down her judgment in MIM v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EWHC 562 (KB). The judgment concerned the Defendant’s application to strike out the claim (as a secondary victim) on the basis that the particulars disclosed no legally recognisable Claim against the Defendant (CPR 3.4(2)(a)). The key issue was whether the cause of the Claimant’s psychiatric injury was an “accident” as defined by the Supreme Court in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC.

Background

The Claimant developed an adjustment disorder as a result of witnessing the labour of his wife and subsequent delivery of his son who, due to the admitted negligence of the Defendant in the management of the labour, was born requiring resuscitation having suffered an acute profound hypoxic brain injury. The Defendant contended that the incident did not constitute an “accident” on the basis that the cause of the injury was not external to the primary victim. The incident was a medical crisis or medical mishap as opposed to an accident. The Defendant applied to strike out on that basis.

Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

Paul involved claims for psychiatric injury by witnessing the death of a close relative from a medical condition which the defendants had negligently failed to diagnose and treat. The Court ruled that in order to succeed as a secondary victim, the Claimant must have witnessed an accident which caused (or had the capacity to cause) injury to the primary victim. An accident was defined as, “an unexpected and intended event which causes injury (or a risk of injury) to a victim by violent external means” (para 24, per Lord Leggatt and Lady Rose). The Court concluded that death or injury due to a pre-existing injury or disease was not analogous to witnessing an accident (para 142). The Court also held that, whilst the Claimant must be close in time and space to the accident, there is no requirement for proximity to the Defendant’s breach of duty (paras 95 and 96).

Ruling

Her Honour Judge Claire Evans granted the Defendant’s application on the basis that what the Claimant witnessed was not an accident. Not only would the ordinary person not think of the process of labour and the birth of the Claimant’s son as an accident, but the facts pleaded failed to satisfy the definition in Paul. An essential part of the reasoning of Lord Leggatt and Lady Rose was that an accident is, “a discrete event … something which happens at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular way” (para 108). The accident must be capable of being pinpointed so that the test for psychiatric injury as a secondary victim has clarity and legal certainty. The events witnessed by the Claimant were pleaded as a “continuum”, suggesting the very opposite of a discrete event. Further, the events failed to satisfy para 24 of Paul, as the injury arose during the bodily process of labour and birth. The failure to expedite delivery was tantamount to the failure to diagnose Mr Paul’s coronary artery disease. The two could not be distinguished on the basis that there was a close temporal connection between the negligence and the injury in this case, because the Court in Paul had ruled that such a connection was not required for the secondary victim to recover.

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