Morgan v Tame

In *Morgan v Tame*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal concerning the tort of negligence, specifically in relation to psychiatric injury. The dispute arose from an incident where the respondent, Ms. Tame, alleged she suffered psychiatric harm as a result of witnessing the appellant, Mr. Morgan, a police officer, shoot and kill her former de facto partner. Ms. Tame claimed Mr. Morgan owed her a duty of care and had breached that duty, causing her injury.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether Mr. Morgan owed Ms. Tame a duty of care to avoid causing her psychiatric injury, and if so, whether that duty had been breached. Crucially, the court had to determine the test for establishing the reasonable foreseeability of psychiatric injury in the context of negligence, particularly whether the injury must be caused by shock in the form of "sudden sensory perception" and whether the plaintiff must be of normal fortitude.

The High Court held that for psychiatric injury to be reasonably foreseeable, it must be established that a person of normal fortitude would have been susceptible to psychiatric injury in the circumstances. Furthermore, the court clarified that the injury must be caused by shock, which is understood as a sudden sensory perception, such as seeing or hearing an event, rather than a gradual realisation of a distressing fact. The court found that Ms. Tame's psychiatric injury was not caused by such a sudden sensory perception, and therefore, the necessary element of foreseeability for a duty of care to arise in negligence was not met.

Consequently, the High Court allowed the appeal, set aside the orders of the District Court, and entered a verdict for the appellants. The respondent's summons for leave to cross-appeal was dismissed.