Reforming Liability for Psychiatric Injury in Scotland: A Recipe for Uncertainty?

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that the common law rules governing liability for psychiatric injury in the United Kingdom are in an unsatisfactory state. The Scottish Law Commission has now published a report, Damages for Psychiatric Injury (Scot Law Com No 196, 2004), which recommends wholesale statutory reform of this area of the law. In this paper, the report is summarised, and its recommendations subjected to detailed critical analysis. It is concluded that, while the proposed statutory scheme is both coherent and imaginative, the Commission's consistent preference for flexible, fact-oriented rules means that implementation of the report's recommendations could give rise to an unacceptable degree of uncertainty.