Widow owed suicide debt

Corr v IBC Vehicles

(House of Lords - 27 February 2008)

Mrs Corr brought proceedings under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 against IBC Vehicles for damages for financial loss resulting from personal injury and the subsequent suicide of her deceased husband.

Mrs Corr's husband was employed by IBC. He sustained personal injuries in an accident at work for which IBC admitted liability. As a result of the injury he was severely disfigured and suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. He was later treated in hospital for depression but in May 2002, six years after the accident, he committed suicide.

At trial, Mrs Corr recovered damages deemed to be attributable to the original accident on the basis that some type of injury was foreseeable and that depression and consequent suicide was within the ambit of an employer's duty of care. This was disputed by IBC. They contended the suicide fell outside their duty, that it was not reasonably foreseeable and therefore broke the chain of causation between the negligence and its consequences.

On appeal, it was held that for the claim for damages relating to the suicide to succeed under the Act, it did not have to be shown that the suicide was reasonably foreseeable as a separate kind of damage to the psychiatric and personal injury of the original accident. The suicide did not break the chain of causation. The House of Lords upheld the decision maintaining the loss attributable to the death by suicide was recoverable by a dependent widow on the basis it was foreseeable in this instance and was not statute barred by principles.

Comment

This decision confirms the previous extension of the concepts of reasonable foreseeability and causation. This may have a greater impact on employers in the future following the influx of claims for stress made by employees.

- Sally Hancock, BLM Manchester

This law report first appeared in Post Magazine on 10 April 2008

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