Chadwick v British Railways Board

Ratio Decidendi

Ffeithiau

Mr Chadwick lived near the site of the Lewisham rail disaster (1957). He spent 12 hours crawling through wreckage helping injured and dying passengers. He subsequently developed severe anxiety and depression.

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Waller J held that the British Railways Board was liable to Mr Chadwick for the psychiatric illness he developed after spending the night giving assistance among the wreckage of the Lewisham train disaster, which had been caused by the Board's negligence. It was reasonably foreseeable that a serious railway accident might prompt bystanders to come to the rescue, and a tortfeasor whose negligence imperils others owes a duty of care to those who foreseeably attempt a rescue. Mr Chadwick had gone into the wreckage, working in cramped and dangerous conditions among the dead and dying, and the horror of that experience caused him recognisable psychiatric injury that was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant's negligence. His claim did not fail merely because his injury was psychiatric rather than physical, or because he was a volunteer. The decision was later explained in White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, where the House of Lords held that Chadwick recovered as a primary victim who was himself exposed to physical danger, rather than on the basis of any special 'rescuer' exception to the ordinary rules on psychiatric harm.

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