What Is a Secondary Victim Claim?

Due to the amount of time between a claimed act of carelessness and the traumatic incident experienced by an individual, secondary victim claims are typically difficult to prosecute in the medical negligence field. Here’s what you need to know all about what a secondary victim claim is and how to execute it.

What is a Secondary Victim Claim?

A principal victim is a participant who has been physically injured or is in danger of being physically injured as a result of someone else’s carelessness.

On the other hand, a secondary victim is the one who experiences psychological impairment as a result of witnessing neglect to a primary victim but didn’t get any physical harm.

If one can legitimately verify that they have experienced recognized psychological harm as a consequence of witnessing a distressing occurrence that happened to someone else, they can file a claim as a secondary victim.

Factors to Consider When Filing for Secondary Victim Claim

For a defendant to be held accountable for the mental condition of a secondary victim, the complainant must establish the required legal closeness between the primary and the secondary victim. Lord Oliver highlighted five characteristics that comprise the necessary conditions of such a connection in South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 AC 310:

• The claim of the secondary victim must be based on an unforeseen trauma to their psychological condition.
• The secondary victim should have a legit relationship (spousal or parental) with the primary victim.
• The secondary victim’s trauma must have resulted from seeing the initial victim’s death, the primary victim’s serious risk, or the primary victim’s suffering and agony.
• The secondary victim must’ve been either physically present at the incident scene or in the more or less near neighbourhood and seen the consequences immediately after.

In A Secondary Victim Claim, What Exactly Is Looked Into?

To determine if the abovementioned requirements can be argued to be satisfied, a detailed history must be obtained, and precise circumstances of the incident must be researched in great depth.

In addition to determining whether the secondary victim has a claim, it is critical to establish that the “shocking occurrence” was caused by carelessness and not an isolated incident unrelated to the misconduct.

We Are Here To Help

If you are looking for a good advisor from an expert solicitor, Wembley Solicitor is here to help. We can help with compensation claims, accident claims, and injury claims.

Please call us on 020 3417 3700 if you feel we can help you with a medical negligence claim and check out our pricing.