King V Phillips ( 1953) 1 QB 429

Full Case Details

Facts

• the defendant’s servant was negligently backing a taxi−cab into a boy on a tricycle.
  • The boy’s mother, who was in an upstairs window, at a distance of about 70 to 80 yards, could only see the tricycle under the taxi−cab and heard the boy scream but could not see the boy.
  • The boy and the tricycle got slightly damaged but the mother suffered nervous shock.
  • The mother was held to be wholly outside the area of reasonable apprehension and the defendants were held not liable.

Principles

Singleton, L.J.,

• The driver owned a duty to the boy, but he knew nothing of the mother; she was not on the highway, he could not have known that she was at the window, nor was there any reason why he should anticipate that she would see his cab at all
• Critical analysis
• Hambrook V Stokes − secondary victim was given compensation