Tearing Up the Patchwork Quilt: An Examination of How, Why and When Liability for Psychiatric Injury in the Tort of Negligence

Abstract

This paper grapples with the question of whether the law of psychiatric injury remains fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. Through analysing the historical development of this area of law an attempt is made to understand how it has come to be degradingly described as a patchwork quilt of distinctions. Once the history has been set out an attempt is made to learn from whatever historical mistakes there may have been and devise a way forward whereby the mistakes of the past can be avoided and a return to clarity can be achieved.