Vernon v Bosley (No. 1) [1997] 1 All ER 577.
PHYSCIATRIC INJURY
Facts
The plaintiff suffered distress after witnessing fire fighters attempt to rescue her children from the wreckage of a car following a road traffic accident. She suffered no physical harm herself, but sought to recover damages for psychiatric injury. Under the law established in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police[1992] 1 AC 310, damages could not be recovered unless the alleged injury was shown to be a ‘recognised medical condition’.
Issue
The question for the court was whether distress constitutes a ‘medically recognised condition’ such as to found a claim for damages for pure psychiatric injury in the tort of negligence.
Held
The court held that distress is not a medically recognised condition but rather is simply a state of mind, albeit an unpleasant one, which all humans inevitably experience in the ordinary course of life. As such, the scope of any duty of care could not be extended to encompass a duty not to cause distress. To do so would open the ‘floodgates’, creating the risk of limitless liability, the extent of which it would be impossible for a defendant to know or predict in advance of acting. The plaintiff’s claim was accordingly rejected.
Although criticised from some quarters as drawing arbitrary distinctions, the decision was in line with the prevailing case law at the time, which distinguished between pathological grief (a medically recognised condition) and non-pathological grief (a normal human emotion) (Kralj v McGrath [1986] 1 All ER 54).
Updated 20 March 2026
This case note remains broadly accurate. Vernon v Bosley (No. 1) [1997] 1 All ER 577 is correctly summarised, and the core legal principle — that distress alone does not constitute a recognised psychiatric illness sufficient to found a claim in negligence — remains good law. The requirement that a claimant establish a recognised psychiatric illness (rather than mere grief, distress, or emotional upset) was affirmed by the House of Lords in White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1999] 2 AC 455 and remains the settled position.
Readers should note that the law on psychiatric injury (sometimes called ‘nervous shock’) has continued to develop. The Supreme Court’s decision in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1 revisited and clarified important aspects of secondary victim liability, particularly regarding the ‘immediate aftermath’ doctrine and the proximity requirements established in Alcock. While this does not alter the principle discussed in this case note — that distress is not a compensable psychiatric injury — students researching secondary victim claims should ensure they read Paul alongside the earlier authorities.
The reference to Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310 and Kralj v McGrath [1986] 1 All ER 54 remains accurate in context.
